GUILTY CA - Timothy Kooyman for torturing, killing stray cats, Rancho Cucamonga, 2009

San Bernardino County sheriff’s Cpl. Alonzo Daniel testified that Timothy Arie Kooyman admitted beating, slashing, axing and running over the animals over a two-week period in April 2008...

”He told me he did it out of pleasure,” the detective testified...

He alleged that Kooyman became enraged when the calico defecated on the floor, prompting him to throw the feline around the room, break its legs and shove his finger into its anus.

”He said he did that just to see how the cat would react,” Daniel testified.

Eventually, the defendant took the severely injured animal outside and ran over it with his truck, according to Daniel.

The detective testified that Kooyman got mad when the black-and-white cat ”wouldn’t love him” and ”used an axe to strike the cat twice in the stomach.”

When the cat didn’t die, the defendant decapitated it, Daniel said.

He alleged that, ”for no particular reason,” Kooyman filled a plastic tub full of water and locked the Siamese inside, trying unsuccessfully to drown it.

The defendant later used a scalpel to slice open the cat’s stomach, and then slashed its throat, Daniel testified.

All of the cats’ remains were thrown behind a wall at a nearby Walgreens store.

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After deliberating less than five hours, the eight-man, four-woman jury convicted 26-year-old Timothy Arie Kooyman of three counts of animal cruelty, with sentence-enhancing allegations that a deadly weapon was used in the

mutilation deaths of the three felines at the National Inn.

Kooyman, who is still serving a five-year prison term for a previous animal cruelty conviction, could be sentenced to nearly three years behind bars by Riverside County Superior Court Judge John Davis on Jan. 7.

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A Riverside County judge Friday sentenced a man to 32 months in prison for animal cruelty but not before calling his crimes “mind boggling” and an animal rights activist calling the abuser among “the worst of the worst.”...

“I can say that I’ve seen the worst of the worst, and you’re in the top three,” Lori Curran, a member of the Animal Rescue Foundation. She also works as a homicide detective.

Davis added the 32 months to a five-year sentence Kooyman was already serving for a previous animal cruelty conviction...

Curran had the harshest words for Kooyman.

Based on her work as a detective, she told the court a story in which a man who was found to have tortured a dog later tortured and murdered a teenage boy.

“Although the facts are different, the behavioral pattern that leads up to a homicide are eerily similar,” Curran said.

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Timothy Arie Kooyman will be paroled next month from Avenal State Prison, apparently returning to Canyon Lake to live with his parents.

In January 2011, Kooyman was sentenced to two years, eight months behind bars for torturing and killing three cats in a Corona motel room. After serving just more than half of his sentence, the 28-year-old convicted felon is being released based on good time and other credits.

"Many, many house pets and young children live in Canyon Lake. We're not advocating vigilantism, but people need to be aware that he will be among them," Contra Costa County-based Voices for Pets founder Leroy Moyer told City News Service...

The flier notes that the majority of serial killers "have a background of cruelty to animals."

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Inland Empire pet owners have reason to be on heightened alert. Timothy Arie Kooyman, a convicted felon whose crimes include charges of animal cruelty, was recently released on parole...

In May 2008, Kooyman was arrested by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies in a Rancho Cucamonga neighborhood. A deputy reportedly found two mutilated cats—barely alive—sealed plastic container inside Kooyman’s truck...

He was also charged with one felony count of recklessly causing a fire to a structure or forest, which occurred after Kooyman poured gasoline on a female cat and lit her on fire...

Kooyman was evaluated for his mental capacity prior to his release in order to determine if he should be sent to a mental hospital. “Three of four clinicians determined that [Kooyman] did not meet the criteria of a disordered offender, so he was released accordingly,” Patino says...

“We certainly hope that this individual does not offend again,” Hall [,a spokesperson for the DA'S office] says. “And, yes, we are aware of research showing what the FBI calls ‘risk factors’ which do include animal cruelty.”

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