A California man was sentenced to 16 years in prison Friday for abducting and killing 21 cats over the course of two months and sexually abusing a dead one.
Robert Roy Farmer, 26, is credited for double the 646 days he has already served, and he will not have to register as a sex offender upon his release, Mercury News reported Friday. Police arrested Farmer in 2015 after cat owners in San Jose, Calif. began reporting their missing animals.
“It feels like another man committed these crimes, but I know it was me,” Farmer wrote in a letter read to the court by attorney Wesley Schroeder. “It’s so hard to grasp I did this. I stole a member of their family.”
Farmer went on to say he was out of his mind when he committed the crimes.
Schroeder argued in court that Farmer should not be convicted of sexually abusing one of the dead cats because a veterinarian examination of the animal reported no evidence of abuse. The same veternarian, however, testified in court that further examinations had revealed otherwise.
A court doctor diagnosed Farmer with an antisocial personality disorder, saying he had a “profound lack of empathy and remorse,” and warning the court that he was likely to harm higher life forms in the future.
Farmer was originally arrested in 2015 after police found him sleeping in a car with a dead cat in the center console and blood smears and fur scattered over the inside of the car.
One woman, who had let Farmer stay with her and her son, testified that she had seen him tie up her cat’s hind legs and repeatedly swing it against the wall of her home.
A necropsy showed signs of blunt force trauma and sexual abuse in the cat found inside Farmer’s car, NBC Bay Area reported.
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