Two charged in dog slayings

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Cape Cod Times

By David Schoetz

BARNSTABLE - Two Cape men pleaded not guilty yesterday to brutally shooting a pair of pit bulls earlier this week near the town firing range.


Keith Kynock, left, and Todd Soderberg are arraigned yesterday in Barnstable District Court. The men were charged with shooting two pit bulls to death.

The dogs were discovered Wednesday morning riddled with bullets in what police that day called an ''execution.''

Keith Kynock of Cotuit and Todd Soderberg of Forestdale, both 26, were arraigned in Barnstable District Court yesterday afternoon. They face two counts of maliciously killing a domestic animal and two counts of animal cruelty, as well as several weapons charges.

Both were released on cash bail - Kynock for $2,500 and Soderberg for $1,000 - and are scheduled to be back in court July 11.

Kynock took the dogs Tuesday night from Guy Nelson, a mason he knew from work at a Marstons Mills landscaping center. The Nelson family was moving to a new apartment that did not allow pit bulls, and Kynock already owned a pit bull that in the past had played with Nelson's dogs.

Less than 10 hours later, police say Kynock and Soderberg drove the dogs to a path near the firing range off Service Road in West Barnstable. The suspects, described as friends, opened fire on the pit bulls with two semi-automatic rifles, unloading 37 rounds and killing both animals, according to police.

A couple walking their own dogs early Wednesday morning discovered the dead dogs and called Barnstable police.

The dogs were found about 100 feet off the road, and were shot mostly in the hindquarters, head and spine, police said. They determined the animals were running away when shot. Neither was wearing a collar or identification tag.

Thursday morning, Latoya Nelson, 24, saw a picture of the female pit bull in a Times story about the shooting. She identified the dog as Hennessey, her 2-year-old pit bull and the sister of Caesar, her father's male pit bull.

When Guy Nelson heard about the shooting from his daughter, he went to the police, who called Kynock to the station.


''You got me''

During questioning, Kynock told police he previously owned a pair of AR-15 rifles, the kind used to kill the two pit bulls. But they had been stolen years ago, he said, according to police. Kynock, who has a gun license in Barnstable, gave police permission to search his car. Inside, they found an improperly stored .40 caliber pistol, brass knuckles, a black ski mask, bolt cutters, rubber gloves and a police scanner.

Police arrested him Thursday on three weapons charges. They have not yet recovered the rifles they believe were used in the shooting.

Meanwhile, working on a tip, police went to Soderberg's Forestdale home Thursday evening and brought him to the station for questioning.

Soderberg, a former U.S. Marine, initially showed police a cut on his leg and said he had been attacked by two pit bulls, police said. When asked if he knew Kynock, his story changed and he admitted that they had shot the dogs, police said. ''When you got me, you got me,'' he told police, according to a police report.

Yesterday morning, as Kynock drove to his arraignment for the weapons charges, police arrested him on additional charges of killing the two animals.

Cape and Islands Assistant District Attorney Matt Kelley asked Judge John Julian to set a high bail for Kynock and Soderberg.

''They put the public in extreme danger by firing the weapons and by taking the law into their own hands,'' Kelley said.

John Cartwright, the Barnstable attorney representing Soderberg, acknowledged in court that Soderberg had been in contact with the two pit bulls, claiming that one of the dogs bit his client's leg. After the arraignment, Cartwright suggested his client was defending himself. On his way out of the courthouse, Soderberg declined to comment.

Kynock's attorney, Robert Deehan, blasted the Barnstable Police Department for intimidating his client. When Kynock was brought to the station Thursday for questioning, Deehan told the judge, authorities pressured his client into allowing them to search his car under threat of arrest.

''He was put into a Catch-22 type of situation, I might say,'' Deehan said.

Beyond denying his involvement in the shooting, Kynock refused to comment after the proceedings.

Former owners shocked

Yesterday, Guy and Latoya Nelson described themselves as ''shell-shocked.'' They said the pit bulls were loving animals with no violent histories.


Kynock called the Nelsons after picking up the dogs Tuesday night, they said, seeking advice about how to control the animals.

The Nelsons said that despite offering to find another home for their pit bulls if it didn't work out, Kynock made no suggestion he wanted to return the animals. When they called Kynock after seeing the story in the paper, they said, he asked them not to go to the police.

''I never would have let my dogs go to him if I thought there was any way in the world this is what was going to happen,'' Guy Nelson said.