Man pleads guilty in Dillon burglary, dog killing

DILLON — The man accused of burglarizing a Dillon woman’s house and killing her dog by placing it into an oven and turning the oven on has been sentenced to 11 years in prison and three-and-a-half-years probation.

Teofilo Falaniko Jr., 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree burglary and one count of unlawful treatment to animals Wednesday in Darlington County.

Falaniko was originally 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.

Police said Falaniko already was in jail on two other burglary charges when he was charged in this case.

They said the suspect told them the dog bit him, which is why he placed in the oven during the burglary.

The suspect was 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.

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.

“When we opened the door, the way she had her nose to the door trying to push out, trying to get out,” she said in an interview soon after the crime, “I believe myself they were sitting and looking at her burning up.”

Bowens said she’d only had Penny for about two-and-a-half months before she died.

“It made me sad, (she was) like my little child ... this was my first pet I ever had, and I loved that dog,” Bowens said.

“To do a person’s dog like that, he don’t have no heart,” she said. “If you don’t have a heart for a dog ... you think he has a heart for a human being?”