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DNA from a dead pit bull’s mouth led to the arrest of a suspect in an Ohio home invasion — but not until after the suspect allegedly went on to shoot and kill a pregnant 16-year-old Akron girl.

David Stoddard was indicted Thursday for aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary in connection with a home invasion in Barberton on Oct. 6.

Three masked men burst into a house, robbed the occupants and shot and killed the family’s pit bull mix after it bit one of the intruders on the arm, according to News Channel 5.

Police investigating the crime swabbed the inside of the deceased dog’s mouth in hopes of finding DNA evidence that would lead to the bitten suspect.

On Dec. 5, Barberton police learned the sample had led to a potential match to Stoddard and began trying to find him — both at his home and through his attorney, who said Stoddard would turn himself in.

That didn’t happen, and police did not issue a warrant for Stoddard’s arrest, in part because they were hoping to confirm the DNA results first with a second test.

On Jan. 6, Stoddard allegedly broke into an Akron home and shot and killed 16-year-old Anna Karam, who was 4-months pregnant.

Stoddard is being held in the Summit County Jail. He’s facing multiple  charges, including aggravated murder in connection with the Akron killing.

Great Danes Samson and Epic were shot to death in 2010 by a neighbor who felt threatened by them.

In death, they’d go on to be disrespected again.

The cremated remains of the two dogs were snorted by burglars who, for some reason, thought the urn they stole contained drugs.

One of the three men accused of stealing jewelry, a laptop, a flat screen TV and the urns from the Florida home of Holli Tencza was sentenced Friday to more than eight years in prison, Ocala.com reports.

Jose David Diaz-Marrero, 20, was involved in a string of burglaries in Silver Springs Shores with two other men between December 2010 and January 2011, police say.

A year and a half after a starved pit bull was found at the bottom of a trash chute at a Newark high rise apartment — looking more like a corpse than a pet — the dog who would go on to be named Patrick is doing great.

Progressing far less quickly are court case against his former owner, and a proposed bill, named after Patrick, that would bring stiffer penalties against those who abuse and neglect animals.

Patrick’s Law would increase penalties against those who abuse and neglect animals. Last week,  it cleared the New Jersey Senate Economic Growth Committee, but it still requires approval by another committee and both houses of the legislature.

The bill (S1303) would make certain acts of neglect and abuse fourth-degree offenses and increases the civil penalties — up to $3,000 for a first offense and $5,000 for a second offense, according to NJ.com. If an animal dies, offenders could be charge with a third-degree crime, which carries stricter penalties.

Sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., it would also increase the penalties for dogfighting; failing to provide an animal with proper food, water and shelter; and leaving animals unattended in hot cars.

Patrick was found in March 2011 in a garbage chute at Garden Spires.

His former owner, Newark resident Kisha Curtis, was charged with animal cruelty and remains free on $10,000 bond. Curtis has entered a plea of not guilty and has rejected a plea deal under which she would serve 18 months in prison, pay a $5,000 fine and serve 30 days of community service.

Instead, she wants to enter a pretrial intervention program,which would involve no jail time and, once completed, leave her without a record.

That’s now under consideration by Newark Superior Court Judge Joseph Cassini III, who agreed last month to review documents from the Department of Children and Family Services regarding Curtis and her childhood.

Curtis admits to abandoning Patrick, but says she “never harmed” the dog and that she had only had him for a few days. She is not accused of throwing the dog down the chute, only of neglecting and abandoning him.

Patrick, meanwhile — after months of veterinary care and intensive rehabilitation at Garden State Veterinary Specialists in Tinton Falls, N.J.–  is happy and healthy.

Who will eventually be awarded custody of him is still at issue, but it definitely won’t be Kisha Curtis.

(Photo: Tony Kurdzuk / The Newark Star-Ledger)

A burglar broke into a San Francisco home, beat the two adult dogs living there, stole a litter of puppies and then apparently called the owner, offering to sell the pups back.

Last week, police said, someone broke into a house in the 100 block of Cameron Way in the Bayview neighborhood and ransacked it, stealing a laptop computer, a television and all four puppies.

During the burglary, the parents of the puppies were badly beaten, apparently with some kind of blunt object, according to the San Francisco Examiner.

The day after the burglary, someone contacted the dogs’ owner, offering to sell the puppies back for $200. The woman told police she didn’t have the money to do so.

The four-week-old puppies are tan and black-colored miniature Doberman Pinscher and Beagle mixes, and were still nursing, according to police.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Sgt. Neil Cunningham of Bayview Station at (415) 671-2300 or the station’s anonymous tip line at (415) 822-8147.

Rocky, a K-9 with the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department in New York, died Sunday night after falling from a five-story building while pursuing a burglary suspect.

The 2 1/2-year-old German shepherd attempted to leap over a 3-foot retaining wall and fell 60 feet into the parking lot.

Rocky, a tracking and narcotics dog, graduated at the top of his class in the spring of 2009 and often assisted other police agencies, the Buffalo News reported.

Recently, he uncovered key evidence in a murder investigation at the Walmart store in Orleans County, and this past summer, he helped track a murder suspect in Albion. When he wasn’t chasing bad guys, Rocky visited children at the Niagara County Fair and through the DARE program.

Niagara Falls Police Superintendent John R. Chella said police got a call from residents who thought they heard someone inside the vacant building. His department requested two K-9s from the sheriff’s office to help in the search.

Following the search, Marcus A. Johnson, 24, of Fillmore Avenue, Buffalo, was arrested by the Niagara Falls Police Department. Police said he was trying to steal copper wiring from a vacant building.

Rocky worked with his handler,  Deputy Craig Beiter, whose previous K-9, Zeus, was also injured in a fall. Zeus was tracking burglary suspects at Lockport’s Old City Hall in 2007 when he fell 30 feet down an old shaft leading to the original Erie Canal Locks. He worked three more years, retiring in 2010.

Rocky was buried by Beiter at a private location, the sheriff’s department said, but a memorial service is being planned.

Clif, a police dog in Vineland, N.J., died yesterday after being struck by a car while on duty.

The police department said in a news release that Clif and his handler, Sgt. William Bontcue, had just completed a search for a burglary suspect.

They were returning to their car shortly before 6 a.m. when Clif was struck by a car driven by a 75-year-old woman, The Press of Atlantic City reported.

Clif died from his injuries at Linwood Veterinary Hospital about 7 a.m.

A five-year-old German shepherd from Europe,  Clif began working for the police department in 2008.

A Tennessee family returned home to find their 10-month-old Siberian husy hanging from a tree last week.

The dog, named Allison, who they left on a 50-foot chain, was found by Juanita Phariss’s 18-year-old daughter, Emily, at their home in Smyrna.

The dog’s chain was wrapped around a tree five times, and she’d apparently been hoisted up, with the chain being attached to the fence, the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro reported.

 ”I untied her collar to get her down before my younger kids could see her,” said Phariss, wo’s 14-year-old daughter, Amanda, has cystic fibrosis.

“It’s been really hard on her, especially,” Phariss said. “She doesn’t even want anybody mentioning Allison’s name. She made a cross for her grave out back.”

Phariss said the chain disappeared from her yard between the time she called the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office and deputies arrived.

Anyone with information in the case are urged to call the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office at 615-898-7770.

The roomate of Andrew David Thompson, the former medical student accused of killing 13 Italian greyhounds, said Thompson told her the first one “kind of strangled itself in its sleep.”

When the next two died — both, like the first, also named Kensington —  Chelsea Grimes says she became suspicious.

Grimes testified today during a preliminary hearing in East Lansing, one of two jurisdictions in which Thompson faces charges of killing a series of Italian greyhounds.

Grimes said Thompson, 24, sent her a cell phone photo of the first Kensington, but that by the time she moved in, on Labor Day of last year, the dog was gone.

Thompson, she testified, said he’d wrapped the dog in a blanket before going to sleep. “He said the dog had kind of strangled itself it its sleep.”

Grimes, a veterinary medicine student at Michigan State University, said she found the first death peculiar, the Lansing State Journal reported today. When two more Italian greyhound puppies disappeared that month under unusual circumstances, she grew more suspicious, and at one point searched his room.

In earlier testimony (see the video below), Ingham County Animal Control Deputy Jodi LeBombard testified, Thompson, said he killed the first puppy by slamming it against the wall. He said he was angry because the dog had urinated in his bedroom.

Thompson, who has been suspended by Michgan State University, was ordered to stand trial on charges he killed or tortured three Italian greyhound puppies in East Lansing. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted of those charges.

He is charged with killing ten more dogs in Mason, while living in a different apartment. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for next week.

Andrew David Thompson, the Michigan State University osteopathic medicine student suspended after he was charged with killing 13 dogs, expects to be reinstated to his school, his attorney said at a hearing yesterday.

Thompson, 24, has admitted killing 13 Italian greyhounds since September 2010, according to law enforcement officials, and said he did it “out of anger.” According to authorities, he said the dogs were disobedient and not housebroken.

Thompson, at yesterday’s hearing, waived his right to have a preliminary hearing within 14 days, according to the Lansing State Journal.

That hearing, now scheduled for Aug. 4, will determine if there is enough evidence for a trial. Thompson, wearing a dark green jail uniform, said he understood the charges against him. His attorney, Kimberly Savage, said Thompson has no adult or juvenile criminal record.

Thompson appeared before Judge Donald Allen in 55th District Court, where he faces 10 felony counts of killing animals at his apartment in Okemos. He also faces three additional counts in East Lansing.

The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison.

Thompson is being held at the Ingham County Jail on a $500,000 bond.

A second-year student at MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, Thompson was suspended June 23 because of the allegations against him. He was charged the next day.

Officials said Thompson owned the Italian greyhounds that he killed, and had purchased them from out of state.

Authorities say 10 dogs were killed at Thompson’s Okemos apartment and three more were killed at an East Lansing complex across the street from MSU’s campus.

As crimes go, few are more cowardly and spineless than the drive-by shooting — except maybe the drive by shootings of dogs.

That’s whats been going on in Clark County in Washington state, where two dogs have been killed in the town of La Center.

Fox 12 reports that, on the heels of a similar shooting last month, a second dog — a 2-year-old American Eskimo named Roger — was killed by shots from a passing car Sunday as he sat in his own front yard.

There were also reports Sunday of another dog in the area being shot at from a car.

James Wilson was working on his car, with Roger sitting just a few feet away, when he heard a gunshot, followed by the cries of his dog.

He got in his own car and chased the dark-colored SUV the shots had been fired from but couldn’t get close enough to get a license plate number, authorities said.

Back home, he learned his dog had died in his wife’s arms.

Clark County sheriff’s deputies say last month another pet owner found his dog on a gravel pile, dead from a gunshot wound. That dog, like Roger, was shot with a small caliber bullet, authorities said.

Deputies are investigating whether the shootings are linked.