Wake County man accused of shooting, killing neighbor's cats

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Wake County man is facing cruelty to animal charges after authorities say he shot and killed his neighbor's cats.

The shootings happened on Dusty Road, just off Garner Road.

Wake County Sheriff's Department officials said 46-year-old Kevin Douglas was tired of his neighbor's cats coming in his yard.

Two of the cats survived the shootings but two others died.

The two that survived are recovering from gunshot wounds to the leg.

One was discovered the day after it was shot and was already dead. Another was found the next day and was too far gone to be saved.

Their owner, Rebekah Talton, said her neighbor never told her the cats were bothering him.

She said, at first deputies were going to charge Douglas with a misdemeanor, but when he shot three more cats, they charged him with a felony.

Talton's 11-year-old daughter loves the cats.

"To see the despair on my daughter's face knowing that he could do something so, (choking up) so heartless to her animals that he knows that she loves, it really broke her heart," Talton told ABC11. "And it upset me to see her that upset. No child deserves to have to see that. That's not something that a child needs to have etched in their brain."