Man thought dog was Satan

A Gulf Breeze man is charged with killing and skinning the family dog on Sunday because he believed it was possessed by the devil. Matthew O. Foote, 25, is being held without bond on a third-degree felony of cruelty to animals. Foote told investigators he believed the 7-year-old dachshund Chihuahua mix, named Sasha, was possessed by Satan, according to a Santa Rosa Sheriff's Office report.

He vividly described slitting the dog's throat and chest with a knife several times, then when she did not die, holding the dog's mouth shut to suffocate her. He then took the dog into the back yard and skinned her body. He dug a shallow grave, doused the body with gasoline and set it on fire. A bag with the dog's skin and entrails was found in a nearby wooded area.



In her report, Deputy Virginia Rush described Foote as "very matter-of-fact," calm, cooperative and showing no emotion as he discussed the dog's death. He said his parents were at Mass when he killed the dog. "He told me he did not really know why he killed his dog except that he thought the dog was Jesus," Rush wrote. "He then corrected himself and said Satan."

Foote also said he spent the preceding weekend in Louisiana where he met a lot of "evil people." He told the investigator that he also punched a girl on a bus and believed that "something was put in the water," the arrest report says. Sheriff's deputies learned of the death after Foote's father, Gerald Foote, called 911 from their Reservation Road home. The elder Foote told the dispatcher that his son had killed the dog.

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