A judge set a $50,000 surety bond for a man police say broke into a Dillon woman’s home and killed her dog by trapping it in a heated oven.
Teofilo Falaniko, 20, is charged with first-degree burglary, second-degree burglary and animal cruelty in connection with the crime, which happened Oct. 22, according to Dillon police reports.
The bond set Friday afternoon in Dillon County is for the animal cruelty and second-degree burglary charges Falaniko faces. A circuit court judge must set the bond for his first-degree burglary charge.
Falaniko already was in jail on two other burglary charges when he was charged in this case. Sgt. Jason Turner said Falaniko was always a person of interest even before police started receiving tips about it, but did not elaborate.
The suspect told police the dog bit him, which is why he placed in the oven during the burglary.
The suspect also bragged about the incident to others, which is what led to his arrest, Turner said.
The suspect is accused of ransacking Bonnie Bowens’ Owens Street residence while she was at church, putting her pug, Penny, inside the oven, turning it on and propping a chair against the oven door so she couldn’t escape.
Turner said Falaniko was always a person of interest even before police started receiving tips about who might have committed the crime, but did not elaborate.
When Bowens got home that night, she noticed her front door kicked in. She did not go inside the home; instead, she called police. When they arrived, they say they found her house broken into and vandalized, and noticed the chair propped against her oven door. When they opened the door, they found Penny dead.
Bowens said she’d only had Penny for about two-and-a-half months before she died. She said people in the community have contacted her and offered to give her another pug, but she will not accept a new dog until she first moves into another home. Her Owens Street residence was burglarized a second time soon after Penny was killed.
The case also attracted national attention. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals got involved in the case by offering a reward of as much as $2,500 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect.
Turner said police are trying to determine who specifically came to police first with the information that led to the suspects arrest first in order to come up with a fair way to give the reward if the suspect is convicted.
South Carolina law states that a person who tortures, torments, kills or inflicts excessive or repeated pain on an animal faces felony charges, 4th Circuit Deputy Solicitor Kernard Redmond has said. If convicted, that person can receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. At the least, a person would have to serve 180 days in prison.
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