Oklahoma woman skins pet puppy to make belt

New York, Jun 21 (ANI): A Jack Russell pup that had been left in the care of a woman, was cruelly shot dead as she wanted to make a belt of the dog's skin.

The 23-year-old woman, Krystal Lynn Lewis of Muskogee, Okla., had been given the pup, named Joplin, by her former lesbian ex-lover Jessica Nichols, to be looked after as she was moving house.

But Lewis instead hatched a plot to kill the pup and use its white fur with a black spot as a belt, and she allegedly had her friend Austin Michael Mullins, 26, shoot Joplin 10 times with a .22-caliber pistol.

She then skinned the animal and started tanning the white and black hide by pinning it to a board inside her apartment, where the authorities discovered it.

The woman's crime was discovered only after the pup's owner Nichols, asked it back, and was instead told that the dog had been killed.

"I still wasn't sure she had done it until I opened the paper and saw my puppy's skin hanging there," the New York Post quoted Nichols as saying.

When officers saw the horrifying sight, they were disgusted.

"We're talking about a 6- or 7-week-old defenceless puppy," sheriff's deputy George Roberson said.

"That's pretty heinous and sadistic," he added.

Both Lewis and Mullins allegedly admitted to killing the puppy and skinning it, and they have both been slapped with felony animal-cruelty charges, and held on 25,000 dollars bail.

The pair of accused puppy skinners now face up to five years in jail and a 500 dollars fine. (ANI)