In a two-day trial that ran into the early-morning hours on April 22, a 12-person jury convicted a Fishersville duo of animal cruelty and maliciously killing a pig by stabbing it in the neck at least 31 times.

Aymarie Sutter, 27, was employed as a veterinary assistant at the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA on July 3 of last year when two Albemarle County patrol officers dropped off a pig they had received several calls about and eventually found wandering near Proffit Road. The SPCA does not take livestock, so as employees worried about what they would do with the swine, Sutter testified that she offered to take it to the home she shared with her fiance, Lee Oakes, 33, house it in their dog run overnight and take it to a butcher in the morning.

In a tearful testimony, Sutter told the jury that when Oakes arrived at the SPCA that evening, his intention was to hogtie the animal and haul it home on a tarp in the trunk of his car.

“Things didn't go as he had planned,” said Bonnie Lepold, Oakes' attorney, during her opening statement. The jury reviewed an SPCA surveillance video, which showed Oakes struggling to walk the pig in a dog harness outside the facility. There, he and Sutter forced the animal to the ground and tried binding all four of its legs with dog leashes while the pig thrashed and eventually bit Oakes through the boot. He then instructed Sutter to get his hunting knife out of his car, and he slaughtered the pig himself—just out of the video's frame.

When the act was over and the pig was finally still, Sutter testified, “Lee closed his eyes and bowed his head, like I see him do over any animal life he takes.”

His own attorney called him a “terrible butcher,” but said when her client realized he would not be able to get the pig in the car alive, he killed it as quickly and humanely as he could. As a skilled deer and turkey hunter, she said he was not prepared for the thickness of the pig's skin.