Florida teens activities could reveal his future

According to a 1997 study done by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Northeastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.

Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last 25 years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.

Virtually every serious violent offender has a history of animal abuse in their past, and since there's no way to know which animal abuser is going to continue on to commit violent human crimes, they should ALL be taken that seriously. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Allen Brantley was quoted as saying "Animal cruelty... is not a harmless venting of emotion in a healthy individual; this is a warning sign..." It should be looked at as exactly that. Its a clear indicator of psychological issues that can and often DO lead to more violent human crimes.

Does this mean that Tyler Weinman, the Florida teenager accused of mutilating and killing 19 cats in two South Florida towns, Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay, has a set future?

On Sunday, he was charged with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body. Tyler Weinman, 18, also faces burglary charges in relation to four of the cats' deaths.

Authorities have been searching for the responsible person or persons since shortly after the killings began in April.

While detained, Tyler Weinman, offered to tell police "about one or two cats" if they would drop other charges, according to court documents released this week. The documents, which include a further transcript from an interview Weinman gave police shortly before he was arrested in June, appear to show the 18-year-old on the verge of a partial confession.

But the interview stopped before a possible confession could happen, the Miami Herald reports, when Weinman said he wanted a lawyer involved in the proceedings. David Macey, the attorney representing Weinman, disputes the accuracy of his client's statements as recorded in the documents. Calling them "either misleading [and/or] false," Macey cast aspersions on the investigation, which "with its unlimited resources" failed to include a tape recording of the interview.

Macey maintains Weinman is innocent of the charges against him, which include animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body for each of 19 cat killings and an additional four counts of burglary related to the crimes.

Thus far in the investigation, only circumstantial evidence seems to connect Weinman to the killings. The crimes took place in the two Florida towns, Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay, where his divorced parents, between whose homes Weinman split his time, each live. His mother's home in Cutler Bay is on the same street where four of the cat killer's victims went missing. The Miami Herald reports on other possible connections:Investigators have said that they grew suspicious about the teenager after reading comments he made about the crimes on the Facebook and MySpace websites. (Weinman even apparently belonged to a "Catch the Cat Killer" group on Facebook, and he was reportedly known in his community as an animal lover.)