Hunter killed and skinned German shepherds thinking they were coyotes, CT family says

A man hunting deer encountered Cimo and Lieben, a family’s two pet German shepherds, and killed them with a crossbow before skinning them in Connecticut, according to court documents.

The hunter said he thought the dogs were eastern coyotes and wanted to have their pelts tanned, an arrest warrant obtained by McClatchy News states. Now he’s facing charges.

Cimo and Lieben’s owners, David and Erin Caviola, desperately searched for their pets after they escaped their Ridgefield backyard fence in November, according to police with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The fence was damaged by a black bear, police said.

They learned their dogs were dead after their son-in-law received a text message from a witness saying he had information about Cimo and Lieben and sent two photos of their bodies Dec. 12, the arrest warrant says.

The Caviola family said in a statement on an online petition Michael Konschak, 61, of Carmel, New York, kept the killing of their dogs a secret. They also accused him of beheading them.

Konschak appeared in Danbury Superior Court on March 1 for a hearing where he said he was ashamed, and his lawyer described his actions as an accident, the Associated Press reported.

“Please know that it was never my intent that morning to harm the victims’ pets,” Konschak said, according to the outlet.

The state DEP’s Environmental Conservation Police arrested Konschak in February in connection to Cimo and Lieben’s deaths, court records show.

He’s facing charges, including second-degree tampering with physical evidence, second-degree forgery, interfering with an officer and two hunting-related charges.

In a victim impact statement she planned to read in court, according to the petition, Erin Caviola spoke of her pets, saying “We live with the emotional pain as we think about what they felt in their final moments, lying beside each other dying.”

“They loved each other so much, to picture that is heartbreaking,” she said.

McClatchy News contacted Konschak’s attorney for comment March 2 and didn’t receive a response.

More on the case

Konschak told investigators he killed the two dogs during a hunting trip in Ridgefield on Nov. 18, according to the arrest warrant.

When one of the dogs chased after two deer, Konschak said he “put it down” with his crossbow, and it died within seconds, the arrest warrant says.

Afterward, he said the second dog approached him aggressively, and he fatally shot it, according to the arrest warrant.

Konschak later spoke with a taxidermist and texted him photos of Cimo and Lieben’s bodies, saying they were coyotes and he wanted to get them tanned, according to the arrest warrant.

The taxidermist didn’t fully believe they were coyotes, and ultimately determined they were German Shepherds after showing the photos to another witness, the arrest warrant says.

Both individuals learned through social media about Cimo and Lieben’s disappearance, and realized they were the dead dogs in Konschak’s photos, according to the arrest warrant. One of them ultimately texted Konschak’s photos to Caviola’s son-in-law, who confirmed those were the family dogs, according to the affidavit. An investigation was subsequently launched.

Konschak told investigators he brought the dogs’ bodies to his home in Carmel, New York, where he skinned them, he told investigators.

However, the outcome was “unsatisfactory,” so he placed the pelts in the trash and tossed out the rest of their remains in the woods, according to the arrest warrant.

“All that time our family, friends, neighbors and strangers had spent searching for them, and they had been dead the whole time, all the while Mike Konschak, the person responsible, kept it a secret,” Erin Caviola said in the statement. “This black cloud has remained over our family as we try to rationalize what would make someone do this to our dogs…The killing of Cimo and Lieben has completely taken over our large and happy family and we want our joy back.”

Konschak is due back in court for a hearing April 12. The state’s attorney’s office is prosecuting the case, according to a state DEEP spokesman.

Ridgefield is about 40 miles west of New Haven.

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