Man acquitted of charges of burning kitten

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Darrel Ray Miller, 18, of New Ulm, was acquitted Friday in Brown County District Court of charges of torture and cruelty to animals, tampering with a witness and making terroristic threats.

Miller was accused of setting a two-week old kitten on fire with a lighter and lighter fluid on Sept. 1, 2001 during a party at his residence. He was also accused of interefering with efforts to call police, making terroristic threats and deliberately throwing another kitten in such a way that caused it to bleed from its mouth, according to Brown County court documents.

Jurors heard testimony and saw evidence over the course of the trial's first two days Wednesday and Thursday. Friends of Renee Frechette, 18, of New Ulm, Miller's roommate at the time of the alleged incident, testified for the state, as did Dr. Sharon Hurley, a veterinarian who specializes in small animal medicine for the Nicollet-New Ulm Veterinary Clinic.

Miller's friends and family testified in his defense shortly before Miller took the stand himself. The jury also saw pictures of the burned cat that Hurley took the day after it was brought in to the clinic.

Most of the jurors heard the trial professed ownership of at least one pet; many were cats and dogs and many jurors admitted owning more than one animal.

But when all was said and done, the jury acquitted Miller of three of the four original charges against him. A second charge of torture and cruelty to animals was dismissed Wednesday by Brown County District Court Judge John J. Rodenberg at the prosecution's request.

"When we were deciding this, everybody felt that nobody was credible," said a juror who refused to give his name as he drove out of the parking lot of the Brown County Law Enforcement Center Friday afternoon. "It was a lack of credible witnesses."

Witnesses for both sides in the case testified that they were at a party at a mobile trailer home, located in the New Ulm Mobile Village the night of the incident.

Witnesses trestified there was an argument between Miller and Frechette over a remark Frechette and friend Michelle Roethler, 19, of New Ulm. According to testimony, Miller told Roethler he was "going to make her pay without physically harming her," and that the burned kitten was later found outside the trailer home.

The testimony of Frechette and two friends said that Miller lit the kitten on fire with Zippo lighter fluid, that after the cat was found, Miller told Roehler he would "cut her throat and kill her if she called police," and that he "said he was crazy and was locked up for being crazy."

However, Frechette, Roethler and Theresa Harder, 18, of New Ulm, all gave slightly different accounts of what happened in the moments before the cat was heard screaming outside and none of them remembered seeing Miller actually take the kitten outside. Frechette testified Miller took the cat outside after the argument. Roethler said it was about 15 minutes after the argument ended. Harder admitted she wasn't paying attention because she didn't want to be involved.

Todd Flatau, Jamie Hause and Miller said they were at the trailer beginning at 6 p.m. and had watched movies and drank beer before Frechette and her friends arrived.

Flatau and Hause later said the kitten, which Miller named Chicken, stayed out of sight for most of the night, but was in Miller's bedroom while they were trying to sleep.

Flatau, 19, of New Ulm, testified that he thought the kitten was still in the living room at the time he, Miller, and two other friends went to sleep around 2 a.m. in Miller's bedroom. Flatau said Frechette's screams woke him up.

Hause, 18, of New Ulm, was also sleeping in Miller's bedroom that night. Hause said he saw all three kittens that night and said Chicken was in Miller's bedroom "scratching the walls, the carpet and the door." Hause told the court he later saw Chicken outside while he was smoking a cigarette, but Chicken didn't appear injured, Hause said. Like Miller and Flatau, Hause went back to sleep and didn't wake up until he heard Frechette and Roethler "yelling about the cat."

Hause later told the court he drank most of a 24-can case of beer that night, but was not severely intoxicated enough to forget what happened, although he said he "felt the effects" of the beer.

Miller testified that Chicken's claws were bothering him while he was trying to sleep, so he opened the window and let it out and went back to sleep, only to wake up again to hear Chicken making noises and have "no idea of what was going on" until Frechette allegedly asked him to snap the burned kitten's neck, which Miller said he refused to do because "it wouldn't've been right." Miller said Harder suggested taking the cat to a veterinarian and Roethler suggested calling police. Miller said he told Roethler not to call the police because "we're minors and we would've all been caught drinking," Miller said.

He denied making threats to Frechette or anyone else. He also said Frechette asked him if he burned Chicken and he told her "Yes" to get her to leave him alone, but on the witness stand he contended he wasn't responsible. He then denied announcing he'd burned Chicken and throwing the other kitten.

Miller said under cross-examination by Assitant Brown County Attorney Clark Tuttle that he considered the three cats to be his cats and that he didn't take them to a veterinarian because he didn't have a vehicle. But he knew Roethler had a cellular phone and admitted he was scared of getting caught for underage drinking. He said Chicken couldn't've been burned with his lighter fluid because he was sleeping on it.

Under question from his attorney, Robert Docherty, of New Ulm, Miller then said he agreed that Chicken should go to a vet and didn't think the New Ulm Police Department would have helped, but a veterinarian would. He said Harder used her pickup truck to take Chicken to the vet and didn't offer anyone a ride.

In closing arguments Friday, Tuttle apologized for the jury for not having "all 1,000 pieces" of the case's puzzle, but said there were enough of them so that jurors had an idea of what the picture is supposed to look like. He said Miller was the only person that had access to lighter fluid that night and no one testified differently. And the manner in which he burned Chicken matched how Frechette and Roethler described it -- he grabbed Chicken by the scruff of the neck, sprayed it with lighter fluid, lit it and threw it to the ground. And while Frechette, Roethler and Harder "aren't perfect people", it "doesn't mean they aren't believable."

Tuttle pointed to the fact that Miller admitted he was more concerned about underage consumption and made no attempt to call police, even though Roethler did.

Docherty admitted that what happened that night was a "horrible act," but asked jurors "to look at the evidence." Everyone who testified admitted they were drinking, Docherty said, but he questioned the credibility of Frechette's and Roethler's testimonies, saying they "weren't credible" and "didn't make sense." Furthermore, since Miller's brother, sister and mother testified that the family owned about 50 pets -- and Miller took care of them without complaint -- it would be completely out of character for him to set a kitten on fire.

Jurors returned a "not guilty" verdict to the three remaining counts about five hours later.