4-year-old boy's pet rabbit killed by elderly neighbour

Jim Mankin made a mistake a couple of years ago. He bought two rabbits. "They eat. They poop. They dig, and they hoo-hoo," Mankin said. As a former city council member, Mankin knows owners are supposed to keep rabbits penned. But with 20 or more, that's not easy. The rabbits dig, and they roam.

And despite a big fence in the way, roam they did into Billie Jean and George Lehman's yard. The rabbits ate the Lehmans' zucchini, dug up their green beans, peed on their lawn. "They had to go," said Billie Jean Lehman. "I chased those rabbits with that net around this yard until I'm black and blue all over." Billie Jean Lehman called animal control. Her husband built a vegetable cover. Then a few days before Mother's Day, Billie Jean Lehman chased down two rabbits, cornered them and dispatched them.



"How do you nicely say an older woman brutally murdered my 4-year-old's pets? Is there a nice way to say, 'Our bunnies are missing?' Well, they are not missing; we know what happened to them, unfortunately," said Dalaena Andersen. That's right. One of the dead bunnies didn't belong to the former councilman. Mufasa was a special lionhead bunny that belonged to 4-year-old Cohen Andersen, who lives down the street. "He's dead," the boy said, "Goner."

Animal control officials said the Lehmans could face a fine or more than $1,000. "We are not going to pay for it, not for somebody else's stupidness," said George Lehman. "It's fine to have animals, but they don't have them penned up." Cohen Andersen's mother says a mistake led to Mufasa getting loose, but he didn't deserve the death penalty. As for the grief-stricken young boy, he has a new pet named Nibbles, who was found in a nearby wood pile.

With news video.