A Utah mother has been arrested for torturing the family's pet cat and snapping its neck in a horror deliberate cruelty incident all in front of her two children.
Ariane Christine Borg, 38, of Holladay, was charged with multiple counts of child abuse and third-degree torture of a companion animal in the 3rd District Court.
Her attorney stated that his client was suffering from mental illness at the time of the incident.
According to court documents, officers who responded to Borg's home Sept. 25 found a 16-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl "crying hysterically "They said Borg had repeatedly beaten their cat on a table before breaking its neck and throwing its body into the yard, documents said. Borg also bruised her daughter's arm when the girl tried to intervene, according to the documents.
Police later found Borg suffering from "self-inflicted stab wounds."
Borg, according to attorney Steven Burton, has spent most of her life battling depression, and her health deteriorated after her medications were adjusted in July. Burton said police went to Borg’s home a week before the incident because she sought help with her mental health, but “no meaningful help was provided.”
Burton said his client has been responding positively to treatments since October. He called her arrest “devastating.”
“Because of the changes in medication and a lack of mental health treatment, Ariane suffered a critical manic episode,” Burton said. “She believed that she and her family were being attacked and she injured herself and a beloved family pet while suffering from those delusions.”
Borg was charged with three counts of child abuse, all class-A misdemeanors, and one count of torture of a companion animal, a third-degree felony, according to court documents. Her bail was set at $100,000.
Police said that since the incident, a therapist has been working with one of Borg's children, in order to heal from the trauma the child has suffered while in their mother's custody.
