ALABAMA – An Alabama man who is accused of torturing and killing 22 kittens he obtained from Craigslist is set for trial next week.
Ronald Fraser Golden, who is 51, of Athens, would name the kittens before throwing them to the floor, breaking their necks and or stomping them to death because he was simply “angry at the world,” Athens police Chief Floyd Johnson stated when the suspect was arrested more than three years ago.
Golden since has been indicted on a total of 22 counts of first-degree cruelty to a cat. Each count of the Class C felony which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Golden’s case is one of 237 on the Limestone County Circuit Court plea docket just this week. As of Tuesday morning, the case still had not been called, District Attorney Brian Jones explained to AL.com.
Ronald Golden
Jones said to The Decatur Decatur Daily even if the case is called, he doesn’t expect a plea deal will be reached.
Golden’s trial is set to begin with jury selection on Monday at 9 a.m. It’s the seventh date, to date, that has been set in the case. It’s possible the trial will be postponed again, The Daily reported, because of the fact that there are two rape trials also on are next week’s docket.
A September trial date was postponed by Circuit Judge James Woodruff pending the completion of a mental evaluation. To now, Golden has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Back in June, Woodruff ordered the evaluation after defense attorney Lucas Beaty claimed in court records that Golden had a history of mental illness which sent him to the hospital multiple times — both voluntarily and involuntarily.
“At and around the time of the alleged offenses, Mr. Golden was experiencing intermittent fits of rage and delusion caused by his mental illness and/or an adverse reaction to the medication for the same,” Beaty noted in court records.
Investigators have stated that Golden did admit to killing the kittens in the “cat room” of his Bullington Road home. He threw them against the floor, stomped on them and would also “wring their necks,” Johnson previously told AL.com. Blood was found splattered all over the walls of his house and the bodies of five dead cats were found on his property, according to investigators.
Police began investigating when a neighbor went ahead and reported finding four dead cats in her yard during the September 2013.
Golden reportedly explained that he would get rid of the kittens’ bodies by throwing them over his fence and into the brush on his neighbors’ property.
