This story will make you angry and sad.

[theweaselking]

Crystal Brown's world was turned upside down a month ago when Chevy, her 4-year-old Australian shepherd mix, didn't come home.

"I told him everything and he never shared any of my secrets," said Crystal, 17, who has had some troubled times in her young life. Chevy was her therapy dog, and she leaned on him for comfort and support.

Two weeks ago, a gift-wrapped box was left at the house where she lives with her grandmother in St. Paul's Rice Street area. Inside the box, Crystal was horrified to find her dog's head.

The incident is considered so shocking that the Humane Society of the United States announced Wednesday that it was offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Shirley Brown, Crystal's grandmother, said that Chevy wandered off after she let him out one night in mid-February.

Crystal peppered the neighborhood with "missing" posters, and went door to door with two photos of Chevy in hopes that someone had spotted him. She rode the bus countless times to the St. Paul animal shelter and called there "thousands of times," she said.

"I felt empty," Crystal said. "I couldn't talk to anyone. He was my dog. It was just me and him."

Then Shirley Brown came home one day and found a box wrapped in red paper on her front steps, with batteries taped to the box. "Congratulations Crystal," the note said. "This side up. Batteries included."

Shirley Brown placed the box on her granddaughter's bedroom dresser. "I was surprised and excited," Crystal said. "I thought it was a gift from my cousin."

She tore off the paper and ripped open the box. Inside, she found valentine candy and a black garbage bag. And then she saw her dog's face.

Crystal screamed and ran to the kitchen to find her grandmother: "Is this my dog, Grandma? No! That's not my dog? Is it my dog?"

Chevy, Crystal said, was the best friend she ever had.

"He was more patient than any person I ever met. That dog waited for years for me to get myself together," said Crystal, who began to cry.

"That dog didn't care what I did, what I didn't do ... what anyone did to me. He didn't care about any of that. He just wanted to love me the way I loved him."

Comments

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

HOLY FUCK. That has "I am stalking you and you are next" written all over it. I'd move the fuck out of state.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I again invoke the special hell clause. This time with extras. And getting very close to understanding why some people find typing "die in a fire" so cathartic.

Lowlifes.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That's the sickest thing I've ever heard.

I hope they catch the obviously disturbed person who did it.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

Disturbed, hell. I'll go with "evil-minded little bastard who ought to be damn well hanged before he graduates to people".

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought, too.

Off topically, but in case you miss the original-location comment...

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

A script just to do that's fairly simple, per se. I've posted one up here:

http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Adding_to_the_Windows_path

Of course, all that does is add the new variable (and adds it to the system path, not the user path, which is presume is what you'd want by adding it on every machine). It doesn't have scaffolding in it to ensure that, say, a given value only gets added once, or to run it on every machine in the domain, but I'm guessing if you could do it on XP with setx you've already got that figured out.

Hope this helps.

Re: Off topically, but in case you miss the original-location comment...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I don't much care about duplicates, and I definitely want the system path.

Thank you. I would have checked the original location again in a few days, but this definitely gets to me faster.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

That's sick!

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Gods dammit. That poor girl...

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I am going, right now, to quietly hope that Chevy was accidentally hit by a car, killed quickly and painlessly, and that some idiot took his head off afterwards; and that Crystal is going to recover, bond with Diesel, and have a good life.

And I am going to try to not hope that whoever did that suffers in the way they so richly deserve..

(That last isn't working so hot.)

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

That would have been a good idea for Crystal, to think that that's what actually happened... But the fact that the person wrapped it up like a present with a misleading message with batteries and valentine's candy... It's near impossible to think that this was what happened. Unless the person found the dog dead, chopped the head, and then sent it to her as a "here's your fucking dog, stop putting signs and posters everywhere." even then, that would be pretty fucking sick.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking something more along the lines of "Hey, dead dog." "Hey, doesn't it look like/isn't it the one that belongs to that freak?"[1] "Hey, yeah! I've got a great idea!"
---
[1] I am not passing judgment on the troubled past mentioned; I am merely assuming that every teenager has someone who thinks this of them.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

In today's news from Norway, Sebastian (7) and Maia (4) Dreyer found their missing cat hanged in a clothesline. "Quite dead" say the children, and Maia adds: "It is actually not allowed to be cruel with an animal." The police say they may investigate the case.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Not much to say in response to that kind of cruelty, really; I hope people there can comfort Crystal, and that Chevy didn't suffer in the process.

[gothpanda.livejournal.com]

I feel sick. :(

[texas-tiger.livejournal.com]

Oh. My GOD.

[dead-faery101.livejournal.com]

this is sick.... but im confused at the "batteries included"....

[rgovrebo.livejournal.com]

Now that Khalid Sheik Mohammed has testified, there's a place available for the people who did this.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. If Khalid Mohammed hadn't testified, the guy who did this would still be employed by the US Army.