The case of former Atlanta Falcons linebacker Prince Shembo's dog-killing incident took on another curious note, if that is possible.
Atlanta's NBC television affiliate, 11alive.com, is reporting that Shambo's ex-girfriend believes he planned to beat her dog out of a jealous rage.
"He said you were spending too much time with him and I felt second to him," Denicia Williams said when she confronted Shembo about her Yorkshire terrier, Dior.
Williams spoke about the incident for the first time publicly, 11alive.com reported, and said she simply had gone into another room at his apartment and when she came back, the dog was breathing but unresponsive.
Can Ray Rice point to Prince Shembo as an example of being blackballed?
Shembo killed the dog April 15, according to an incident report the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained. Williams told 11alive.com that said she defended Shembo at first but ultimately confronted him when his explanation didn't make sense.
"What if I told you that I did hurt Dior?" she said Shembo told her. "And I was like, 'What did you do?' He said, 'I kicked him.' And I was like, once? And he said no."
When Shembo turned himself in to police last week on an aggravated cruelty to animals charge, his attorney Jerry Froelich called it an accident. Froelich said Shembo told him he kicked the dog as a reflex in response to being bitten by the dog.
"If he did bite him, why didn't he tell me that when he confessed?" Williams said. "Why didn't he say, 'Dior bit me and I reflexed by kicking him, and I'm sorry?'"
Froelich said in a statement in response to Williams interview, "He was not jealous of any dog. What caused the dog's injuries was that the dog bit him."
"According to a necropsy, Dior had significant internal injuries and the cause of death was blunt force trauma," 11alive.com reported. "The dog had a fractured rib, fractured liver, abdominal hemorrhage, thoracic hemorrhage, extensive bruising/hemorrhage in muscles in front leg and shoulders, head trauma, hemorrhage and edema in lungs, hemorrhage between esophagus and trachea, and hemorrhage in the left eye with internal injuries."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a veterinarian at the Duluth Animal Clinic administered a shot to "try to help the dog" as it lay dying. Froelich suggested that the shot may have killed the animal.
"The vet gave it a shot," Froelich said. "And the dog died. So I don't know what caused the dog's death."
The AJC added that Shembo told Williams that he was considering leaving the country because the dog had died, according to an incident report the newspaper obtained.
The Falcons immediately released their 2014 fourth-round draft choice after the news of the dog's death went public.
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