Woman Accused of Hanging Dogs While Hallucinating Sentenced

A Bristol woman accused of killing her two pit bulls after hallucinating that they told her to hang them was sentenced to prison on Thursday.

A judge sentenced Veronica Reyes to 5 years in prison, suspended after six months.  She will also be credited with time served.

A group of protesters lined the sidewalk outside the courthouse in Bristol.

Police began investigating Reyes after responding to an Allentown Road home on Nov. 21, 2015 to investigate a missing person report and were alerted that the missing woman might have killed her dogs, police said.

The landlord went to investigate after a neighbor reported seeing Reyes hang one of her dogs from a tree and found a freshly filled in hole and the backyard.

Reyes and the dogs were missing, according to police, and Reyes turned herself in to police on Dec. 5.

She told police that she had been out in Waterbury with friends in November and smoked laced marijuana while she was on prescription pain killers and antibiotics after having her wisdom teeth out, the affidavit states.

When she later returned home, she started hallucinating and thought the walls and her two dogs were speaking with her, the affidavit says.

It was then that Reyes noticed a hanger on the floor by the cage the dogs were in and asked them, “You want me to hang you?,” police said.

The dogs became hyper and Reyes thought they were telling her to hang them, so she grabbed a leash and chain and hung one dog, according to police.

When the dog was dead, she put it in a garbage bag and buried it, according to court paperwork. Then she killed the second dog in the same manner.

After killing the dogs, Reyes went back to Waterbury, she told police.

She went on to tell police that she killed the dogs because she was feeling a lot of stress in her life and was depressed after a recent break-up, the affidavit says.

Reyes was charged with two counts of cruelty to animals.

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