SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A 24-year-old man is accused of killing and dismembering several dogs, leaving a gruesome scene in a Nevada motel room.
The dogs included two Chihuahuas that a woman says she gave to Jason Brown because she couldn’t care for them and wanted to find them a good home, according to police.
Brown was arrested July 9 after a maid told authorities she found a decapitated dog in a room he was renting at the Super 8 in a busy suburban area across from a mall in south Reno.
Officers who responded found four dog heads in a small refrigerator in the room, detectives said in a probable cause filing. They also found other dog parts, two bloody kitchen knives and the scissors of a Swiss Army knife.
Washoe County sheriff’s deputies said other items recovered from the room included two dog collars with rabies tags registered to Nancy Frank, the woman who reported giving Brown the Chihuahuas. Authorities also found a dog dish, blankets and tennis balls “all believed to have been items” that the Sun Valley woman gave Brown, the report said.
Brown, a former Reno High School student, was scheduled to appear at a Reno Justice Court hearing Wednesday on six felony counts of torturing or maiming and killing an animal and two counts of possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine.
His lawyer, John Oakes, told the Reno Gazette-Journal last month that Brown has “mental health issues” and might need a psychiatric evaluation before he goes to trial.
Prosecutors say Brown killed five dogs at the Super 8 and a sixth at another location. He was being held at the county jail on a $70,000 cash bond.
The criminal complaint and supporting documents provide a chilling account of the investigation into the killings prosecutors say spanned four days in early July.
On July 4, a man first sent an email to the Washoe County sheriff’s dispatch saying a woman informed him she saw dog body parts in a sport utility vehicle belonging to Brown.
The tipster, Al Von Wellscheim, also alleged Brown was killing unwanted dogs that he obtained through Craigslist, Washoe County sheriff’s Detective Joe Bowen wrote.
Detectives confirmed Brown had registered the SUV that was parked outside the motel where he was staying in a room on the first floor. They said during his interrogation on the evening of July 9 that Brown acknowledged he bought a dog from Frank in Sun Valley and that he was living alone in the motel.
Brown initially stated he entered the room July 7 to find his gray dog dead in the bathroom, the sheriff’s report said. He said the dog looked like it had been cut up, and he suspected a girl named “Debbie” did it. He later changed his story, the report said.
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