A New York man told the owners of a pair of German Shepherds that he killed and skinned late last year that he thought the pets were coyotes.
A crowd of animal rights activists joined the dogs' owners inside the Danbury Superior Court where suspect Michael Konschak attended a hearing.
The 61-year-old New York man said that he felt ashamed of the November 2022 incident that unfolded while he hunted deer in Connecticut.
Konschak said that he killed a canine couple of 10 years old after they escaped a yard using a crossbow. He then skinned the dogs for their pelts.
“Please know that it was never my intent that morning to harm the victims' pets,” the suspect said.
But prosecutors argued that Konschak could not mistake the dogs for coyotes before skinning them.
“We live with the emotional pain as we think about what they felt in their final moments lying beside each other dying,” the dogs' owner said.
