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DOG BITTEN MAN BECOMES ANGRY - Angry at being bitten when he tried to remove a friend's hunting dog from its cage, Kanawha County resident Mark Starcher jerked the animal to the ground and shot it in the head.
Starcher, however, was acquitted following his animal cruelty trial.
Cousins David Mooney and Mark Mooney, who owned the dog, testified that they went raccoon hunting with Starcher and his 9-year-old stepson in March 2005.
After shooting the hound, Starcher, 38, allegedly dragged the dead dog to an abandoned Chevy Blazer up on cinder blocks and taped the animal's paws to the steering wheel, according to the Charleston Gazette.
Starcher claimed he had permission to put down his friend's vicious dog.
David Mooney, 22, said he and Starcher went drinking and hunting in a remote part of Kanawha County. He said before the dog bit Starcher, he was down-to-earth and sociable.
"After the dog bit him, he had a real attitude problem," Mooney said.
A REALLY BIG KNIFE - An illegal immigrant accused of hacking a man to death with a machete in Texas ended up working at a West Virginia lumber mill with the help of a year-old labor-placement company.
Leon Lugo Andrad De was arrested in Elkins and was charged in the March slaying of William Huang at the Lucky Seafood Market in Houston.
Mexican Andrad De was placed at a Mill Creek plant by Spanforce Labor of Lewisburg.
Spanforce workers started showing up in restaurants and lumber mills about a year ago in the greater Elkins area, but a video producer from Weston who has investigated Spanforce says it's clear they're exploiting workers.
Eric Spelsberg is working on a documentary that the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation plans to air on a statewide TV network this Labor Day.
Spelsberg says Spanforce and the employers who use the service are taking jobs from West Virginians, saying it might be legal, "but it's (deleted) unseemly."
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