GALLUP, N.M. – A rural New Mexico man convicted of extreme animal cruelty in the killing of his dog has a warrant out for his arrest after failing to begin serving a prison sentence that authorities sought to make an example of his case.
A state District Court judge in Gallup issued an arrest warrant on Monday for 35-year-old George A. Milliken of Thoreau after he failed to surrender Feb. 17 to start serving a two-year sentence.
Milliken had pleaded no contest to two counts of extreme animal cruelty and Judge Lyndy Bennett sentenced him on Feb. 3, giving him two weeks to get his affairs in order.
Milliken caught his dog with a metal-claw trap and shot it with a crossbow after it destroyed insulation under the family trailer in 2018, the Gallup Independent reported.
Neighbors who called authorities said they heard the dog cry loudly for hours before they found it dead the next morning with a leg in a trap and an arrow in its chest.
McKinley County Undersheriff James Maiorano said deputies went to Milliken’s home on Thursday to serve the warrant but did not find him.
County Animal Control Director and Animal Protection Supervisor Cozy Balok said Friday she hopes the prison sentence sends a strong message that animal abuse won’t be tolerated.
“This is the first sentencing like this. It is huge,” Balok told the Independent. “We all know the fact that there’s a link between animal abuse and human abuse.”
Bennett said the sentencing was difficult because Milliken didn’t have previous criminal history and has six children to support. But she ultimately granted prosecutor William Snowden’s request to make an example out of Milliken.
The prosecution “is appalled at the defendant’s behavior and believes imprisonment will have a specific effect on the rest of the general population,” Snowden said in a sentencing memorandum. “In a jurisdiction where cruelty toward animals is endemic, where the term ‘rez dog’ is synonymous with neglect and hopelessness, the citizens of McKinley County must begin to think twice before harming animals, particularly those that they have undertaken to own.”
Thoreau is near the southern boundary of the main portion of the Navajo Nation’s reservation.
Defense attorney Linda Holander wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Milliken wasn’t thinking clearly when he killed the family pet because he had suffered a painful hand injury involving broken bones before the incident.
Holander said Milliken resorted to using the trap because he couldn’t get the dog out from the trailer and that he shot it with the crossbow to put it out of its misery.
Hollander also said the dog died immediately after being shot and that Milliken didn’t remember the dog crying in pain.
