Deamion Robert Davis Is at Long Last Arrested for Brutally Killing a Cat in the Parking Lot of a Funeral Home in Johnson City That Earlier Had Been Stolen and Given to Him on Craigslist

Deamion Robert Davis

"This is a prime example of why we tell people not to give animals away on Craigslist. Unfortunately there are people who want to harm animals and this is an easy way for them to get them."

-- Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter.

At around 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 18th, a beautiful longharied yellow and white cat was found brutally slain in the parking lot of the Appalachian Funeral Home and Cremation Services at 800 East Wantagh Avenue in Johnson City, ninety-eight kilometers north of Asheville. It had been stabbed multiple times, beaten about the head with a blunt object, and its rear legs had been bound with duct tape.

It was lying in a pool of blood that had been run through by an automobile and that in turn has fueled speculation that it also had been run over. The likely murder weapon, a bloody screwdriver, was found nearby.

As far as it is known, the cat was neither collared and tagged, tattooed, nor microchipped. Although the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) was informed of the cat's name, sex, and age shortly after its lifeless body was discovered, it has chosen to this very day to keep those vital details to itself.

It would be a mistake, however, to read anything sinister into that glaring omission. Rather, the officers of the JCPD are simply too ailurophobic, blockheaded, and callous to believe that any cat could ever possibly have a name, a sex, and anyone would might care about it. As far as they are concerned, cats were put here on this earth only to be neglected and abused.

Regrettably, they are far from being the only individuals on this earth who think that way. "A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle," is how that the usually reliable Ambrose Bierce defined a cat in his 1906 magnum opus, The Devil's Dictionary.

A necropsy was supposedly ordered but the results of it never were released to the public. Days dragged into weeks and the latter into months as this case grew day-by-day colder than the cat's refrigerated remains.

No arrest was forthcoming and none was expected from the uncaring slackers within the JCPD. Not even the killer's throwing down of the gauntlet to them by so brutally killing the cat in a public place and then putting it on display for all to see could prompt them to take action.

It thus appears that they were too busy counting their money, twiddling their thumbs, and beating up their girlfriends in order to be bothered with the brutal murder of a cat. (See WCYB-TV of Bristol, Virginia, October 25, 2021, "Johnson City Police Officer Accused of Threatening to Kill His Girlfriend Arrested" and the Johnson City Press, October 23, 2021, "Johnson City Police Officer Arrested on Domestic Violence Charge.")

Perhaps most disturbing of all, even the spilling of so much innocent blood on the sabbath in the very heart of the Bible Belt was insufficient in order to get the nearly forty-seven per cent of local residents who, according to best places. com, consider themselves to be religious to put pressure on the police to act. The faith is not what it used to be...or maybe it is exactly what it always has been, id est, primarily hot air and hypocrisy. (See Cat Defender post of June 4, 2021 entitled "A Beautiful Yellow and White Cat Is Brutally Slain and Then Put on Display in the Parking Lot of a Funeral Home in Johnson City but Absolutely Nobody Cares about Apprehending Its Killer, Least of All the Utterly Worthless Local Police.")

Then out of the blue on October 19th came the startling announcement that nineteen-year-old Deamion Robert Davis of 1404 Baxter Street in Johnson City had been arrested and charged with killing the cat. No additional information about him, such as any prior arrests that he might have, has been disclosed to the public.

It is not even known who made the arrest. Given that his mug shot is credited to the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Jonesborough, twelve kilometers southwest of Johnson City, it would seem logical to conclude that the collar was made by that department as opposed to the JCPD.

The Camera Does Not Lie: Davis Looks Just as Ugly in Color

Following his apprehension, Davis was taken to the Washington County Detention Center, also in Jonesborough, where his bail was set at US$10,000. He was arraigned in Washington County Sessions Court in Jonesborough on October 20th but his trial date has not been posted online.

If he does in fact reside at 1404 Baxter Street, he surely did not have any problem with coming up with the US$100 that he would have needed in order to have regained his freedom because, according to zillow.com, a brick ranch house containing three bedrooms, two baths, one-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-four square feet of space, trees, and a garden occupies more than a third of an acre of land at that address. Moreover, the house is appraised at US$195,800.

It is within walking distance of the Fairmount School and the Girl Scouts of Southern Appalachians and a Texas Roadhouse are located nearby. Although Davis may look like a strung out junkie in his mug shot, 1404 Baxter Street is the very epitome of bourgeois respectability.

C'est-à-dire, either he or, more likely, his parents not only have money but more than enough of it in order to buy him out of this temporary embarrassment and inconvenience. As the legal eagles in America are fond of saying, an individual is presumed innocent until proven broke.

His arrest came after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) in Nashville found his fingerprints on the duct tape that had been used in order to bind the cat's rear legs. (See WCYB-TV, October 19, 2021, "Johnson City Man Arrested in Connection with Cat Tortured and Found Dead in April 2021.")

Given that Davis' arrest came almost six months to the day after the cat was found, it is only fair to ask why that it took the TBI so long in order to get around to dusting the duct tape for fingerprints? That is a rather simple procedure but because of the TBI's tardiness Davis could have been on Mars by the time that it got around to doing its job. Since the agency is not saying, it would appear that it is also run by derelicts and slackers who are every bit as ailurophobic and bone-lazy as the rotters within the JCPD.

Malheureusement, the dereliction of duty on the part of both law enforcement bodies is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg in this disturbing case of cruelty to a cat. The events that led up to the cat's killing are even more bizarre and, arguably, every bit as criminal.

For starters, Johnson City resident Krista Kennedy contacted the JCPD shortly after the cat was found in order to inform it that she believed it to be hers. Press reports fail to mention, however, if the JCPD summoned her to the morgue in order to make a positive identification. 

Even more shocking, any individual who cared so much as one whit about her cat would have rushed unbeckoned to the JCPD and demanded to have not only viewed the body but to have taken it home with her and given it a proper burial. Nevertheless, her coming forward did put the cops on the right scent and they should have been capable of taking things from there on their own and to have made an arrest long before the end of April.

According to Kennedy's story, she had gone out of town and while that she was away she had left the cat in the care of Steve Kacmar; who he is and what type of a relationship that he has with her has not been divulged. For his part, he told the Johnson City Press on October 20th that "he was watching the cat and let the cat out as usual." (See "Cat Killed in Parking Lot Came from Craigslist Ad.")

That was sometime on Friday, April 16th and that was the last time that he ever saw either hide or hair of it. Less than two days later it was found dead in the parking lot of the charnel house.

1404 Baxter Street Is an Idyllic Abode for Such a Monster as Davis

What occurred during the interim is the stuff that horror movies are made of and this despicable crime has at its center its very own evil witch in the form of a nosey, no-good neighbor named Cyndi Wall who promptly stole the cat because "she did not agree with how Kacmar was taking care of the cat."

If that had been all that she had done that in itself would have been bad enough but she did not have the decency to have stopped there but rather she turned around and got rid of it almost immediately as if it were a hot potato. She did so by placing an advertisement on Craigslist and shortly thereafter giving it away to Davis.  

As far as it has been revealed, no money exchanged hands and it is highly doubtful that Wall even asked him for either identification or references. She therefore quite obviously intended for the cat to meet with malice aforethought because absolutely nobody who cared the least little bit about a cat's safety and well-being would ever so much as entertain the notion of either giving it away or selling it to a perfect stranger on the Internet. 

She accordingly is guilty of stealing the cat and should have been arrested along with Davis. Actually, she should also have have been charged with aggravated animal cruelty, just as he has been, because she is, in so many respects, even more culpable than him. Much more to the point, it was precisely her criminal acts that made Davis' dastardly conduct possible.

Whereas conscientious individuals have been known to steal cats off the street out of a genuine concern for their well-being and then to refuse to return them to their rightful owners, that most definitely was not the motivating factor behind Wall's patently criminal conduct. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "A Hungry and Disheveled Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")  

That realization segues into the crucial question of what actually was it that motivated her to act as she did? Since there is not anything in the public record to even remotely suggest that either Kennedy or Kacmar were in any way neglecting or abusing the cat, that explanation can be immediately dismissed.

     
The most obvious answer would be that Wall is a bird-lover because they, as a group, are infamous all around the world for stealing, torturing, dumping, and killing not only their neighbors' cats but also those that belong to managed TNR colonies. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2007, November 16, 2007, January 19, 2011, August 8, 2011, August 17, 2011, and March 9, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts," "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton," "A Bird Lover in München Illegally Traps Rocco and Then Methodically Tortures Him to Death with Water and Pepper Spray over an Eleven-Day Period," "Ernst K.'s Trial for Kidnapping, Torturing, and Murdering Rocco Nears Its Climax in a München Courtroom," "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Cat Killer," and "An Amateur Ornithologist Guns Down Hartley with an Air Rifle, Feigns Remorse, and Then Cheats Justice by Begging and Lying.")  

Gardeners are likewise notorious for committing the same atrocities against their neighbors' cats. (See Cat Defender posts of June 10, 2010, August 26, 2010, and March 13, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Cat-Hating Gardener in Nordrhein Westfalen Is Told by the Local Authorities to Remove a Board of Nails from His Yard," "In Stark Contrast to Ailurophobic America, Ziegelchen's Illegal Trapping by a Gardener in Altstädten-Burbach Is Roundly Condemned in Deutschland," and "The Sick Wife Defense Works Like a Charm for Cunning Patrick Doyle after He Traps a Cat and Then Shoots It with an Air Rifle while Still in Its Cage.")

Another favorite tactic of both groups of criminals is to trap their neighbors' cats and then to hand them over to shelters in order to kill. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006, March 9, 2007, October 30,2006, and August 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps His Neighbors' Cats and Then Gives Them to a Shelter to Exterminate," "A Long Island Serial Cat Killer Is Guilty of Only Disorderly Conduct, a Corrupt Court Rules," "A Collar Saves Turbo from Extermination after He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths," and "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and a Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

It therefore is strongly suspected that cat-hating birders and gardeners have now gravitated to social media sites, such as Craigslist, in order to solicit the assistance of monsters like Davis in the commission of their despicable crimes. For them to have joined forces with such undesirables can only be described as a case of birds of a feather flocking together.

This Is What Davis, with Cyndi Wall's Assistance, Did to This Cat

Moreover, it is already well established that dogfighters, vivisectors, and other scumbags are acquiring their feline victims online. (See Cat Defender post of October 31 2021 entitled "The Arrest of a Dogfighter in Ayr Provides a Rare Glimpse into the Utterly Despicable Abuse That Bait Cats Are Subjected to but the Scottish SPCA Still Stubbornly Persists in Treating Them as Expendable Nonentities.")  

Kennedy likewise cannot escape censure for leaving her cat behind to fend for itself while she went out of town. This is a difficult lesson for most owners to acknowledge but the care of a cat cannot be delegated to anyone, save perhaps a close family member whose fidelity to it is beyond reproach. Why, even the most dedicated owners have their hands full in keeping their cats both safe and healthy.

There are even a myriad of dangers inherent in boarding cats at surgeries, pet hotels, and groomers. Some sitters are rather conscientious in the fulfillment of their solemn obligations but even under such circumstances the cats are left all alone in empty houses and apartments twenty-four hours a day except for the brief visits that they make in order to feed them once or twice a day.

As everyone should be acutely aware, fires, gas leaks and burglaries occur all the time and when they do somebody needs to be on hand who is both willing and able to take care of the cats. (See Cat Defender post of September 9, 2009 entitled "Home Alone in New Zealand, Friendly Little Nookie Is Repeatedly Kicked and Left for Dead by Vicious Burglars.")

Most importantly of all, it has been demonstrated time and time again that lovers, so-called friends, and roommates can seldom be entrusted with the care of a cat. For example, Alex McAllaster of Fort Walton Beach idiotically left her beloved light-brown and white tomcat Dante all alone with an unidentified roommate when she left town on a six-week sailing expedition in late April of 2013. Even more egregiously, she did so knowing full well that he was suffering from bladder problems and therefore could not eat kibble.

 

As things soon turned out, she was hardly out the door before her roommate took Dante to a nearby Sam's Club and gave him away to a perfect stranger in the parking lot. That unidentified individual then most likely dumped him because Dante almost immediately found himself homeless and all alone in a hostile world.  

"You could have burned the house down, I wouldn't have cared," McAllaster later swore to the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach on June 7, 2013. (See "Roommate Gives Cat Away; Owner Searching.")  "But you screwed with my cat."

It took an enormous amount of searching but McAllaster's hard work finally paid a huge dividend on June 29th when she finally was able to locate Dante near a Walmart's at 748 Beale Parkway Northeast. By that time, he was dirty, emaciated, and possibly may have suffered liver damage.

Despite having lost half of his sixteen pounds, the attending veterinarian expected him to recover. (See the Northwest Florida Daily News, July 3, 2013, "Cat Given Away by Roommate Found: 'As Soon as He Meowed, I Knew It was Him!'.")   

Just last week there was story in the news concerning an unidentified man who could not get along with his common law wife's black cat. So, while she was away one day he took the cat and dumped it at a shelter.

A Bloody Screwdriver Was Found Near the Cat's Body

He then cleverly replaced it with another black cat more to his liking and now, six years later, he is claiming that the woman, whom he eventually married, never has had so much as a clue as to his devilry. (See Tag24 of Dresden, November 6, 2021, "Weil sie zu Aggressiv war: kaum zu glauben, was dieser Mann der Katze seiner Frau angetan hat," The Mirror of London, November 3, 2021, "'I Swapped My Wife's Cat's for an Identical One -- It's Been Six Years and She Has No Clue'," and Newsweek, November 3, 2021, "Woman (sic) Secretly Swapping Wife's Cat for 'Identical' Better Behaved One Sparks Debate.") 

If against all odds there should be so much as a kernel of truth in man's outrageous tale, his wife would have to be awfully thick-headed which seems highly unlikely. On the contrary, few women are that stupid; in fact, most of them are highly observant. A bloke has to get up awfully early in order to put anything over on a woman, especially considering that most of them are just naturally suspicious, with good cause, of men.

That story does, however, underscore the danger of leaving a beloved cat alone with a lover for so much as a single minute, let alone going out of town for an extended stay. Cat haters and killers are everywhere and they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sexes, but the most dangerous ones of all are the dissemblers and Machiavellians. It accordingly would be a colossal mistake for anyone to ever underestimate them.

Not a great deal is ever heard in the United States about abusers and killers who use duct tape in order to hobble cats so that they in turn can torture them to death, but the practice appears to be rather widespread north of the border. For example, in a case that is eerily similar to this one, an unidentified cat was found dead in Calgary in January of 2014 with tape covering just about all of its face. A necropsy later showed that it had been strangled and beaten about the head, tail, and rear legs. 

Along about the same time, a malnourished dog was found in the same vicinity with its mouth taped shut. Unlike the lazy, good-for-nothing bums within the JCPD, the Calgary Humane Society (CHS) did not take these atrocities lying down.

Au contraire, it went out and arrested nineteen-year-old drunkard and dope addict Nicolini Camardi of Calgary and charged him with animal cruelty. Deplorably, the CHS's good work ultimately was undone by Justice George J. Gaschler of the Provincial Court of Alberta, sitting in Calgary, who let him off with twenty-two months in jail, the first sixteen of which he had already served while awaiting trial.

For what little it is worth, Gaschler did place him on probation for three years and banned him from owning pets for the remainder of his life. He also was ordered to undergo anger, alcohol, and drug counseling.

That sweetheart deal left Heather Anderson of Delegates Against Inhumane Suffering (the Daisy Foundation) livid. "It's pathetic that our justice system does not see that these animal abuse cases need to have much higher penalties," she said. "It's just not right. It's time that something happened and people started speaking out on behalf of the animals." (See Cat Defender post of November 25, 2015 entitled "A Cruel Teenage Drunkard and Dope Addict Who Bound a Cat and a Dog with Tape Before Killing Them Is Let Off Easy by a Calgary Court.") 

Not all cretins who disable cats with various forms of tape actually go on to kill them. Even so, just doing that much leaves them vulnerable to starvation, hypothermia, and predation by dogs and wildlife.

For instance, in March of 2015 a strikingly handsome three-year-old longhaired, black and white polydactyl named Bruce Almighty was found in Regina, Saskatchewan, with all four of his limbs trussed up with electrician's tape. He was rescued at the last minute by a kindhearted couple but he later required extensive surgeries and a prolonged stay in the hospital in order to regain the use of his legs. 

Dante Was Stolen by a Roommate and Then Fobbed Off on a Stranger

In the end, however, he recovered to the point that he was able to be adopted. (See Cat Defender post of November 10, 2015 entitled "Bruce Almighty Weathers an Abominable Act of Cruelty Coupled with the Intrigues of the Regina Humane Society in Order to Hopefully Be Able to Pick Up the Pieces of His Shattered Life.")  

During a hellish six-week period back in 2012, three cats were found bound with tape in four separate incidents in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The first assault occurred on September 6th when a sixteen-year-old tom named Sam owned by Dianne Gordon of Poplar Street was found with his paws wrapped in blue duct tape and his tail fastened to his neck.

On that same date, a cat named Zuma who was owned by Liberty Harakas and lived only two doors down the street from Sam and Gordon was also discovered trussed up with blue duct tape. Later on October 1st, a brown female with black markings named Nellie was found on Chestnut Street, about one-thousand feet removed from Poplar Street, with green painter's tape covering her body. 

Three weeks later on October 22nd, her assailant attacked her again. The only differences this time around was that he used brown as opposed to blue duct tape and that he had tightly bound her feet and fastened her tail to her body.

Both attacks left her owner, Jennifer Paloposki, shocked and frightened for Zuma's safety. (See the News Bulletin of Nanaimo, October 25, 2012, "Police Investigating Cruelty to Cat" and the Nanaimo Daily News, October 25, 2012, "Police Have 'Several Persons of Interest' to Talk with after Series of Cats Duct-Taped.")

Although it is a foregone conclusion that the judges who rule in roost in Washington County General Sessions Court are going to let Davis off with probation and, possibly, a minuscule fine, it is going to be interesting to see what effect, if any, that state Senate Bill 166, which was sponsored by Senator Jon Lundberg of Bristol and signed into law on May 27th by Governor Bill Lee, is going to have on the outcome of this case. By removing the requirement that the prosecution must prove that a defendant acted in  a "depraved and sadistic manner" should make it considerably easier for it to win a conviction, that is if it is even halfway serious about doing so.

Aggravated animal cruelty is a Class E felony in Tennessee and Davis could be sentenced from one to six years in jail and fined up to US$3,000. That is not much of a penalty for torturing and killing a cat and, worse still, the new law is not going to make much of a difference if judges continue to follow their time-honored tradition of coddling abusers.

Furthermore, since Davis committed his despicable crime before the new law went into effect, he may be tried under the old one. That has not deterred Lady Freethinker of Santa Monica from starting an online petition urging prosecutor Kenneth Baldwin, who represents the First Judicial District of which Johnson City is a part, to go after Davis to the fullest extent of the law.

As of November 6th, the petition had collected fifty-two-thousand-four-hundred-thirty signatures. (See Lady Freethinker, October 28, 2021, "Alleged Cat Killer Found and Arrested.")

Nicolini Camardi also Used Tape in Order to Kill Cats and Dogs

Regardless of what happens with Davis once he is finally forced to stand in the dock and to face the music, the work of the JCPD and the Washington County Sheriff's Office is far from being finished. On the contrary, it is paramount that they arrest Cyndi Wall for stealing Kennedy's cat and then giving it away on Craigslist.

Such behavior is a huge problem, especially with bird lovers and gardeners, and it urgently needs to be addressed not only by the law enforcement community but also legislators such as Lundberg. As things currently stand, these cat-hating individuals and groups fervently believe that they have invented the perfect crime and that they thus have been granted a license to practice their rabid ailurophobia with impunity.

These rotten, despicable egomaniacs therefore need to be disabused of their feelings of invincibility and there is not any better way of doing so than by arresting and locking them up in prison for a good long time while simultaneously cleaning out their bulging coffers. Once they have grown old, frail, and penniless, it then might be safe to release them in order to live in the street and to eat out of trash cans. It is just too bad that the law does not permit them to be blinded like Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

As far as Craigslist is concerned, its founder Craig Newmark is not about to mend his evil ways and get out of the animal trafficking business. He will not even kick off of his web site those individuals and businesses that post crooked real estate ads. (See the San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 2021, "Are Craigslist Vacation Rentals Always a Scam?")   

That by default leaves it up to those individuals who care about cats to neither sell nor to give them away on Craigslist or any other social media platform. "This is a prime example of why we tell people not to give animals away on Craigslist," Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter told the Johnson City Press in the October 20th article cited supra. "Unfortunately there are people who want to harm animals and this is an easy way for them to get them."

To be fair about the matter, neither shelters, veterinarians, breeders, pet shops, nor others who traffic in cats and other animals do anywhere near an adequate job of vetting those individuals that they allow to adopt and purchase their pets. Worst still, none of them have either the willingness or the resources in order to conduct the follow-up home visits which would be the only way of protecting the lives of the animals that they peddle to the public. That in turn leaves the safety and well-being of all animals in a simply deplorable state.

Presumably the cat's remains are still on ice awaiting the outcome of Davis' trial. After that, they undoubtedly will be either incinerated or thrown out in the garbage. That is how little regard that the judicial system in this country has for cats.

Before that is allowed to happen, Kennedy should insist that they be returned to her so that she can give her cat a proper funeral and burial. Considering how miserably that she failed to keep it safe from harm and abuse while it was live, that is the absolute very least that she can now belatedly do for it in death.

If she is unwilling to do even that much for it, the onus then falls upon the shoulders of David Mathes of the Appalachian Funeral Home who most assuredly has the expertise and resources in order to make the cat a small coffin and then to provide it with a final resting place on the spacious grounds of his establishment. Above all, it is imperative that he determine the cat's name, sex, and age and engrave those vital details on a fitting tombstone. That is not too much to ask, is it?

Neither the cat nor its abominable suffering must ever be forgotten by the citizens of Johnson City. Furthermore, its gravesite should serve as a constant reminder of the tremendous debt that they owe to it and to all of their feline residents. At the very top of that rather lengthy list is the imperative that they take drastic measures in order to put an immediate end to the abuse and killing of all cats and that admonition most definitely applies to Davis and the slaughterhouse that she presides over but yet dishonestly persists in calling a shelter.

Photos: Washington County Sheriff's Office (Davis), Zillow.com (1404 Baxter Street), the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter (the dead cat), the Northwest Florida Daily News (Dante), and  Facebook (Camardi).