On August 14, 1999, between 7:45 and 8:30 am, I was sitting at my kitchen table and noticed my neighbor Jim Miller take a rifle out of his truck. Shortly afterwards I heard a loud bang, which sounded like a gun being fired. I immediately thought of our two cats Blanca and Junior. I had asked my partner to tie Blanca up, but didn't check to see if she was. I asked my partner to go and check on them. A few minutes later he came into the house with Blanca in his arms. She was alive and bleeding. Her little eye was completely out of it's socket. Needless to say, I was in shock and my partner drove her to the veterinarian, while I stayed home. He arrived back home within an hour with Blanca dead in his arms. He said the Vet said she was not shot, but dies of trauma associated with possibly being beaten to death. The only thing that made sense was Jim had shot at her and missed and then beat her to death.

I asked my partner Javier what had happened when he went outside after we heard the shots. He said that he saw Jim Miller and questioned him about the gun shots. Jim said it must have been someone across the way and then said Jim started gloating saying "I don't know, but I got this one. Javier then looked over by our shed and said "oh no that is our Blancetta".

We were both in terrible shape emotionally and it took me a good hour before I could call the police and report the shooting. The police came and took a statement. Officer Littlejohn said it was a Class E felony and that he would talk to Miller and make an arrest. When he finished talking with him he came back to our house and said Jim had confessed to killing her. However Deputy Littlejohn said there were complications and he could not make an arrest at that time. He needed to turn it over to District Attorney Schuh on Monday.

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I wrote a letter to District Attorney Schuh explaining what had happened and asked for the maximum penalty for her death. About a week later I received a letter from Mr. Schuh asking to talk with me. When I entered his office he asked me what I felt was a fair punishment for Mr. Miller and I stated the maximum for animal cruelty. Mr. Schuh began to get mad and stared to talk about our male cat Junior and that my partner had taught him to kill birds. The DA kept saying and what about my little song birds. I said this has nothing to do with Blanca. She rarely went outside and has never killed a bird, that I am aware of. He complained of receiving letters from people about my cat and nothing about a person who was recently killed by a drunk driver. He was very sarcastic and intimidating.

As time went on I began receiving letters from people saying that Mr. Schuh was writing them saying the whole thing was a cruel hoax. That we lived in a small rural unincorporated area. The DA used the fact that I had made posters stating that Blanca was beaten to death against me. I had asked him if he wanted me to have a postmortem done and he said no. When I dug her up myself and took her to another town to have this done and sent him the results he totally ignored it. Jim Miller wrote an editorial for the newspaper stating he was a wonderful animal lover and questioned my character. This letter was published and my rebuttal denied.

A neighbor told me that Jim told him that he killed Blanca on his land as she was coming out from under his trailer. Now I have pictures of all this. Jim lived on one side and our neighbor on the other and us in the middle. Jim had to sit in his back yard and shoot through our yard to get to our neighbor. Blanca had to run across our yard and behind our shed where Javier found her.

We moved from our trailer the first week in October and bought a home in the city. We were harassed by our landlord and our neighbors wife(the one who shot Blanca) She yelled out the door of her home at us swearing and calling us names. Our landlord said we were creating problems for the neighbors. We were not even talking to anyone. The landlord sent us letters and sent copies to the DA., saying we let our cats run etc. We had never had a complaint until she was killed and never had a problem with the landlord.

The DA sent Deputy Littlejohn to our home at different times to get the same statement over again. He wanted a letter stating our relationship with Jim Miller and his family. I attempted to get the police report and was denied it. This has been a nightmare and it's so hard to put on paper. I am sorry that I rambled on. I hope you can make sense of this and put something in print. Blanca was not on Jim's property she was almost in our yard.....maybe 10 feet away. That neighbor had no problems with our cats and he is a close friend.

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24 hours after Blanca died I got up in the am and heard meowing (loud at first) and it continued for about a minute then gradually it got fainter and fainter until it was gone. I know she was saying good bye to me. I was feeling so guilty for not making sure she was tied up. Her little meows were saying Mommy it's okay, mommy it's okay. I knew this from the first time I heard them and will never forget her good byes.

From what I have been told Mr. Schuh has never prosecuted an animal cruelty case in Juneau County prior to her death, but did prosecute a dog being shot shortly after she died.