IMPORTANT for VIRGINIA Residents & Visitors

It is important for all Virginia residents, or those who plan to visit Virginia,
to write these officials about the sentencing of this case.

Background: On September 9, 2008 Steven Clark and Donald Blake threw gasoline
on a cat and set the animal on fire. When the cat ran away, they caught it and
tied it to a cinder block with Weed Eater string and set the animal on fire once
again. Veterinary necropsy results revealed that damage to the lungs showed that
the cat had inhaled hot gases while still breathing.

On April 3, 2009 sentencing was as follows:

5 year prison sentence
3 years 3 months suspended
21 months active prison term
3 years supervised probation
Restitution of any and all bills in connection with this incident.

I think it is important to ensure that these two men receive psychological
evaluation and treatment. Otherwise they will be released to continue to
torture and kill other innocent victims. Please join me in inquiring as to
their follow-on treatment while serving 21 months in prison. PLEASE ASK FOR A
REPLY. We don't want them walking the streets with our children, neighbors and
animal friends.

For examples to include in your letter, see cases from police files at the
bottom of the letter at:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/AnimalAdvocacy/message/5096

A Sample Letter and Contact Information are below. Please write, fax or email
and forward widely. You could also enclose information about the animal-human
violence connection from such sites as:

www.psyeta.org/beyond_violence.html
www.animalcrueltyisfamilyviolence.org
www.pet-abuse.com/pages/abuse_connection.php

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TO:

The Honorable D. Bruce Patterson
Clerk of Rockbridge Circuit Court
2 South Main Street
Lexington, VA 24450
FAX: 540/463-3850
email: dBPatterson@... (courts.state.va.us)

The Honorable Robert N. Joyce, Jr.
Office of the Commonwealth Attorney
17 Court House Square
Lexington, Virginia 24450
FAX: (540) 463-6628

Mayor Mimi Elrod
300 East Washington Street
P.O. Box 922
Lexington, Virginia 24450
FAX: 540-463-5310
e-mail: mimicobb11@... (gmail.com)

Case #Case Numbers GC08010355-00 and GC08010307-00) - Blake and Clark
Concern with Sentencing

Honored Officials:

On September 9, 2008 Steven Clark and Donald Blake threw gasoline on a cat and
set the animal on fire. When the cat ran away, they caught it and tied it to a
cinder block with Weed Eater string and set the animal on fire once again.
Veterinary necropsy results revealed that damage to the lungs showed that the
cat had inhaled hot gases while still breathing. Blake and Clark faced Class 6
felony charges for torturing and willfully and inhumanely inflicting pain and
maiming and mutilating a companion animal resulting in its death.

Thank you treating these cases as serious crimes, and for sentencing these young
men to prison on April 3, 2009. I am, however, concerned that you suspended over
three years of your five-year sentence. No mention was made of any type of
mandated pyschological evaluation and treatment. In 21 months Steven Clark and
Donald Blake will again be walking the streets as a threat to our children,
neighbors and companion animals.

As I'm sure you are aware aware, law-enforcement officials and mental health
professionals consider cruelty to animals a precursor to violent crimes against
humans. The American Psychiatric
Association identifies animal cruelty as one of the diagnostic criteria for
conduct disorders, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uses reports of
animal cruelty in analyzing the threat potential of suspected and known
criminals.

Please don't allow potential serial killers, of which we have seen several
examples unfortunately in recent days in the US and Europe, to fester in our
jails and be released into our community untreated. Many animal abusers have
"graduated" to equally horrific crimes against humans.

I would like to know if the charges for incarceration will include psychological
evaluation and treatment. Let's not release monsters back into our society to
commit further atrocities to our loved ones.

Respectfully,



--- In AnimalAdvocacy@yahoogroups.com, AnimalAdvocacy@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> Apologizing for this late notice, but your calls, emails and faxes about this
hideous torture case need to reach the Lexington Courthouse by tomorrow.
Virginia has had too few prosecutions and serious sentencing for animal abuse
and must hear from the public. See sample letter below.
>
> PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY AND CONTACT IMMEDIATELY!
>
> SAMPLE LETTER: Remember to include your name and address and please change
some of the words you use.
>
> TO: Hon. D. Bruce Patterson
> Email: dBPatterson@... (courts.state.va.us)
> Ph: 540-463-2232; Fax: 540-463-3850
>
> TO: Commonwealth's Attorney Robert N. Joyce
> E-mail: Bjoyce@... (lexrocketca.net)
> Ph: 540-463-7337
>
> Lexington/Rockbridge County Circuit Court
> 2 South Main Street, Lexington, VA 24450
>
> RE: Jury Trial of Donald Blake and Steven Clark on April 3, 2009 -- Please
impose maximum sentencing with psychiatric treatment as these boys are a Serious
Danger to the Safety of Residents and Visitors to Virginia (Case Numbers
GC08010355-00 and GC08010307-00)
>
>
> Dear Honored Officials:
>
> On 9/9/08, Steven Clark and Donald Blake threw gasoline on a cat and set the
animal on fire. When the cat ran away, they caught it and tied it to a cinder
block with Weed Eater string and set the animal on fire once again. Veterinary
necropsy results revealed that damage to the lungs showed that the cat had
inhaled hot gases while still breathing. Blake and Clark face Class 6 felony
charges for torturing and willfully and inhumanely inflicting pain and maiming
and mutilating a companion animal resulting in its death. At the Preliminary
Hearing in General District Court on 12/10/08, the Commonwealth's Attorney's
office presented evidence and the Judge decided the evidence warranted
presentation to a Grand Jury. The case went to the Grand Jury on 2/2/09, an
indictment was returned, and a date for a jury trial in the Lexington/Rockbridge
Circuit Court has been set for 4/7/09.
>
> I ask you to prosecute these vicious killers to the fullest extent of the law
and impose maximum sentencing to include psychiatric treatment. As I pray that
you are aware aware, law-enforcement officials and mental health professionals
consider cruelty to
> animals a precursor to violent crimes against humans. The American Psychiatric
Association identifies animal cruelty as one of the diagnostic criteria for
conduct disorders, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uses reports of
animal cruelty in analyzing the threat potential of suspected and known
criminals. Experts agree that it is the severity of the behavior — not the
species of victim — that must be taken into account.
>
> As the trail of sad examples below shows, and recent violence across our
country attest to; it is time to send a clear message to people capable of
intentionally inflicting serious injury or death to helpless animals, that such
brutal and senseless crimes will not be tolerated and there are guaranteed
consequences for those who would show such disdain for the law.
>
> Please take this case seriously. These boys must be detained and treated
before they harm anyone else: human or non-human alike. Please take action to
protect others from being harmed by this
> sadistic killers.
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
>
> ATTACHMENT: ANIMAL VICTIMS / HUMAN VICTIMS:
> REPORTS FROM POLICE CASE FILES
>
> Lee Boyd Malvo (D.C. Area "Sniper" and serial killer) killed & tortured cats
as a child
>
> Russell Weston Jr., tortured and killed 12 cats: burned and cut off their
tails, paws, ears; poured toxic chemicals in their eyes to blind them; forced
them to ingest poison, hung them from trees (the noose loose enough to create a
slow and painful death.) Later killed 2 officers at the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, DC.
>
> Robert Alton Harris murdered two 16-year-old boys, doused a neighbor with
lighter fluid and tossed matches at him. His initial run-in with police was for
killing neighborhood cats.
>
> Jeffery Dahmer staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs. Later he dissected
boys, and kept their body parts in the refrigerator. Murdered 17 men.
>
> Kip Kinkle shot 25 classmates and killed several in Springfield, Oregon. He
killed his father and mother. Said he blew up a cow once. Set a live cat on fire
and dragged the innocent creature through the main street of town. Classmates
rated him as "Most Likely to Start World War 3."
>
> Charles Cullen, ex-nurse who says he killed as many as 40 patients under his
care at hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, also brutally beat and
tortured his two pet dogs.
>
> As a boy, Albert De Salvo, the "Boston Strangler," placed a dog and cat in a
crate with a partition between them. After starving the animals for days, he
removed the partition to watch them kill each other. He raped and killed 13
women by strangulation. He often posed bodies in a shocking manner after their
murders.
>
> Richard Allen Davis set numerous cats on fire. He killed all of Polly Klaus'
animals before abducting and murdering Polly Klaus, aged 12, from her bedroom.
>
> 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson tortured and killed
dogs. On March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Golden and Johnson shot and
killed 4 students and 1 teacher during a fire drill at their school.
>
> After 16-year-old Luke Woodham mortally stabbed his mother, killed 2
> classmates and shot 7 others, he confessed to bludgeoning his dog Sparkle with
baseball bats and pouring liquid fuel down her throat and to set fire to her
neck. "I made my first kill today," he wrote in his court-subpoenaed journal.
"It was a loved one...I¹ll never forget the howl she made. It sounded almost
human." In June 1998, Woodham was found guilty of 3 murders and 7 counts of
aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 3 life sentences and an additional 20
> years for each assault.
>
> Theodore Robert Bundy, executed in 1989 for at least 50 murders, was forced to
witness a grandfather who tortured animals. Bundy later heaped graves with
animal bones.
>
> At 4-years-old, Michael Cartier dislocated the legs of rabbits and hurled a
kitten through a closed window. He later shot Kristin Lardner 3 times in the
head, before shooting himself.
>
> Henry Lee Lucas killed numerous animals and had sex with their corpses. He
killed his mother, common law wife, and an unknown number of people.
>
> Edward Kemperer cut up 2 cats. He later killed his grandparents, mother and 7
other women.
>
> Richard Speck threw a bird into a ventilator fan. Killed 8 women. Randy Roth
taped a cat to a car's engine and used an industrial sander on a frog. Killed 2
of his wives and attempted to kill a third.
>
> David Richard Davis shot and killed 2 healthy ponies, threw a wine bottle at a
pair of kittens and hunted with illegal methods. Murdered his wife, Shannon Mohr
Davis, for insurance money.
>
> Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Monster, tortured dogs, and practiced bestiality
while killing animals. Murdered or attempted to murder over 50 men, women and
children.
>
> Richard Trenton Chase, "The Vampire Killer of Sacramento," bit the heads off
birds, drained animals for their blood, killed animals for their organs, and
later killed 6 people in random attacks. One police officer present at the scene
of the first murder, confessed to having nightmares about the crime for months
afterwards.
>
> "The Kobe Killer,² an as yet unnamed 15-year-old boy in Japan, beheaded a cat
and strangled several pigeons. Decapitated 11-year-old Jun Hase, and battered to
death a 10-year-old girl with a hammer, and assaulted 3 other children in
separate attacks.
>
> Richard William Leonard's grandmother forced him to kill and mutilate cats and
kittens when he was a child. He later killed Stephen Dempsey with a bow and
arrow. He also killed Ezzedine Bahmad by slashing his throat.
>
> Tom Dillion murdered people's pets. He shot and killed Jamie Paxton, aged 21;
Claude Hawkins, aged 49; Donald Welling, aged 35; Kevin Loring, aged 30; and
Gary Bradely, aged 44.
>
> At 9-years-old, Eric Smith strangled a neighbor's cat. At 13, he bludgeoned
4-year-old Derrick Robie to death. Smith lured the little boy into the woods,
choked him, sodomized him with a stick, then beat him to death with a rock.
>
> David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet out of jealousy.
He later shot 13 young men and women. 6 people died and at least 2 suffered
permanent disabilities.
>
> Arthur Shawcross repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten
drowned from exhaustion. Killed a young girl. After serving 15- 1/2 years in
prison, he killed 11 more women.
>
> Michael Perry decapitated a neighbor's dog. Later killed his parents, infant
nephew and 2 neighbors.
>
> Jason Massey's killing resume began with cats and dogs; at 20 he decapitated
and disemboweled a 13-year-old girl and fatally shot a 14-year old boy. He
claims to have killed 37 cats, 29 dogs and 6 cows.
>
> Patrick Sherrill stole neighborhood pets, tethered them with baling wire and
encouraged his dog to mutilate them. He killed 14 co-workers and himself in
1986.
>
> Keith Hunter Jesperson, "Happy Face Killer," bashed gopher heads and beat,
strangled and shot stray cats and dogs. He is known to have strangled 8 women.
He said: "You're actually squeezing the life out of these animals...Choking a
human being or a cat--it's the same feeling...I'm the very end result of what
happens when somebody kills an animal at an early age."
>
> Carroll Edward Cole, executed in 1985 for an alleged 35 murders and reputed to
be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, confessed that his
first act of violence was to strangle a puppy under the porch of his house.
>