Ex-boyfriend sentenced in dog beheading case

"What have we done to you to make you do such a horrible thing?" Shirley Brown wrote in a letter to former family friend Anthony Gomez that was read before his sentencing Tuesday.

By Pat Pheifer, Star Tribune

Last update: November 27, 2007 - 7:40 PM

"What have we done to you to make you do such a horrible thing?" Shirley Brown wrote in a letter to former family friend Anthony Gomez that was read before his sentencing Tuesday.

Gomez, 25, of St. Paul, admitted in September to watching another man kill and behead Chevy, a 4-year-old Australian shepherd mix that belonged to Brown's teenage granddaughter, Crystal. He admitted knowing it would terrorize the teenager when he sent the head to her in a gift-wrapped package in February, and he pleaded guilty in September to making terroristic threats.

Ramsey County District Judge Elena Ostby sentenced Gomez to 21 months -- 14 months in prison and seven on supervised release. With 252 days of jail credit, Gomez will be free in less than six months.

The sentence was an upward departure from state guidelines, which call for an 15-month stayed sentence.

Crystal Brown, now 18, was not in the courtroom Tuesday morning. Shirley Brown, 72, was, and listened as prosecutor Mark Hammer read her two-page, handwritten letter:

"You ate at our table, watched movies in our living room," the St. Paul woman's letter said. "I let you borrow my car. I took you to work and picked you up when you had no money. ... I didn't take anything from you. How can you live with yourself?"

Gomez apologized to Brown's family in court. He spoke almost too softly to be heard but said drugs, not spurned affections, were behind his acts.

"I loved her, I loved her very much," Gomez said of Crystal. "I wouldn't hurt her."

Shirley Brown said Tuesday that her granddaughter is in a work-for-education credit program. She still loves dogs and has three pit bulls. But she must keep them elsewhere because Shirley Brown said she is afraid of the breed.

Although Shirley Brown helped police find and arrest Gomez for the crime, a $20,000 reward raised from donations and from the Humane Society of the United States has not been disbursed yet, said Jill Fritz, Minnesota/Wisconsin state director for the Humane Society.

Pat Pheifer • 651-298-1551

Pat Pheifer • ppheifer@startribune.com

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