Cat Killer Caught

Tyler Weinman, 18, was arrested by the Miami-Dade police. He is charged with 19 counts of animal cruelty, four counts of burglary and 19 counts of improper disposing of an animal body. His bail has been set at $100,000. There had been a reward of $12,000 posted for information leading to an arrest in this case.

"Our communities of Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay have been on edge for many weeks now because of the horrific and unspeakable slaughterings of many of their beloved feline pets. I sincerely hope that with his arrest, the residents will feel relieved and their cats will be safe once again. It is expected that the vicious crimes that have plagued these communities will not be repeated," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

"I commend the police officers of the Miami-Dade Police Department and senior trial counsel Michael Von Zamft who worked tirelessly and exhaustively with our law enforcement partners in order to put an end to these acts of cruelty. My heart goes out to the pet owners who have suffered such a great loss," Fernandez Rundle said.

Since April the residents of the communities of Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Kendall had been on the lookout for a cat killer, as each night more and more of their pets turned up dead. The cats suffered terribly before dying. They were dismembered, some were gutted and all were bludgeoned over the head before being discarded on the front lawns of their owners, supposedly to cause increased emotional suffering.

Tyler Weinman's parents divorced in 2006 and he spent part of his time with each parent. According to Miami-Dade county property records, Weinman’s parents live 1.43 miles apart in an area covering much of where the cat killings took place.


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His mother, Aiba Weinman, lives on Ridgeland Drive — the street where at least four of the killings occurred. It is also the street where the killer started the cat killing rampage. His father, Douglas Weinman, lives northeast of his ex-wife – just east of where the northern most killings took place.

Although Weinman is in custody, the police may be looking for others. Palmetto Bay officials said police plan to serve warrants to multiple suspects, but they did not say how many. Circuit Judge Darryl Trawick signed the arrest warrant for Weinman. He was arrested at a party early Sunday morning (6/14/09) in Coral Gables and taken into custody.

According to Major Julie Miller of the Miami-Dade police:

This is an open investigation and even though we do have other possible subjects, we can't comment any further on what we do have.

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