Owner Charged In Fatal Dog Beating In Erie

City police accuse her of assaulting the animal at her Parade Street apartment on Monday.

Erie police detectives investigating the death of an 11-month-old Labrador mix named Izzy after the dog was beaten with a hammer inside a Parade Street apartment early Monday morning picked up on inconsistencies in what the dog’s owner was telling them, Deputy Chief Mike Nolan said Wednesday.

Investigators also received information from other people that led them to question the owner’s initial report that an unknown person entered the apartment while she was away and attacked the animal, Nolan said.

The dog’s owner, 37-year-old Justina Robison, additionally gave police two different versions of what happened to Izzy before she eventually admitted to hitting the dog, he said.

Robison was charged by Erie police Detective Christopher Clement early Wednesday morning with a third-degree felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals for causing Izzy’s death, as well as misdemeanor counts of possessing an instrument of crime, cruelty to animals and false reports to law enforcement.

She was placed in the Erie County Prison on $50,000 bond following her arraignment by Erie 5th Ward District Judge Paul Bizzarro.

Nolan said Robison lied to police in her initial report, and it cost patrol officers and detectives a lot of time and effort in working the case. It also upset members of the Erie community to the point where citizens were trying to raise money to offer as a reward for information leading to the apprehension of the suspect, he said.

“Once again it shows the dedication of Erie police in solving cases like this,” Nolan said. “It was great work. These guys put aside their personal lives to work through the night.”

Robison did not give detectives a reason for why she assaulted her dog when she eventually confessed to the crime, investigators said.

Izzy was euthanized after the dog was taken by an Erie Humane Society officer to the pet emergency center because of the extent of the dog’s injuries following the attack, which happened in Robison’s apartment in the 300 block of Parade Street.

Clement charged in Robison’s criminal complaint that she used a hammer to strike the dog numerous times, then called Erie police and reported that someone entered her residence while she was not there and assaulted her dog.

City police officers who responded to the apartment on a report of an unknown situation involving a lot of blood on Monday at about 2:30 a.m. were told by Robison that she returned home at 1:40 a.m. to find the dog on the kitchen floor, and it appeared to have been beaten. Robison had taken the dog into the bathroom, where officers located it, Clement wrote in the affidavit of probable cause filed with the criminal complaint.

Officers said they recovered a bloody hammer suspected of being used to assault the dog and some duct tape suspected of being used to muzzle it. A Humane Society cruelty officer who was also involved in the investigation also turned over to city police a damaged broom handle that the dog’s owner said she believed may have been used to assault the dog, police reported Monday.

Detectives investigating the case said no evidence was found indicating that anyone broke into Robison’s apartment. They also found no evidence that anything was taken from the apartment.

There were two other dogs and a cat in the apartment but none were reported injured, according to police. The animals were turned over to a relative of Robison’s, investigators said.

Nolan said detectives spent a lot of time at first investigating Robison’s report of a burglary and following up on information she and a number of citizens provided them. That information revealed inconsistencies in Robison’s initial report, and it led to additional interviews with her, Nolan said.

The ongoing investigation eventually led detectives to no longer look at Robison as a victim, he said.

Detectives interviewed Robison on Tuesday afternoon and spoke to her again on Tuesday night, and it was during the last interview that she admitted to striking the dog with the hammer, according to police.

Robison is tentatively scheduled to appear in court for her preliminary hearing on Monday. The aggravated cruelty to animals charge she faces is a felony offense in Pennsylvania, punishable by up to seven years in prison, under changes to state law adopted during the summer of 2017.

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