Holmes indicted on animal cruelty charge

JACKSON, Tenn — Just more than 3 months after police believe Ined Holmes, 46, was seen throwing a bag of puppies into a dumpster at a south Jackson convenience store, all but one of his eight animal cruelty charges are dropped.

“We have to identify each individual victim if we got to trial,” Assistant District Attorney, Al Earls said. “We would have to identify, be able to show the jury a separate puppy for each criminal county.”

The district attorney’s office said that would include proof the puppies were examined by a qualified expert and more specific information they do not currently have.

Those familiar with the incident said they just want justice for the animals.

“It was terrible that somebody would do that to some animals to start with, just to drop them in a dumpster,” Don Veroneau said. “One instead of 8 is not good, but ‘one and yes we’re gonna get him’, and ‘8 he might walk’, let’s go for the one and put him up.”

Attorneys believe the possibility of returning to all eight counts is one that is dependent on the evidence available.

“We don’t want to run into a scenario where we get in front of a jury and they ask which puppy are we talking about and we’d have to pick out 8 different puppies,” Earls said. “Right now we don’t have that and if we got that and decide to go back we can do that.”

WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News spoke with Ined Holmes at his home, Wednesday afternoon.

While he said he did not want to comment, he said he was to hear the number of charges against him had been decreased.

Holmes will return to court to be officially charged with his indicted count, next Monday, August 8.