Webb City man charged with animal abuse after shooting two dogs, killing one of them

John Howard Webb, 40, Webb City, was charged with misdemeanor animal abuse after allegedly deliberately shooting and killing two dogs, killing one of them.

From the probable cause statement:

On 12/26/2023 I received a phone call from the victim regarding his dogs getting shot on his property in Jasper County outside of Oronogo. He said he heard two gun shots at about 8:30 a.m. that morning and hadn't seen his dogs around and started to worry about them. 

He saw one of his dogs walking back to the house with blood coming from its face. He rushed the dog to the vet who confirmed it had been shot with a large caliber rifle. 

The victim had his neighbor look for the other dog. His neighbor located the other dog on the victim's property near the line of a neighboring property. That dog was deceased with a bullet hole in its head and was covered with leaves and sticks. 

I met Jasper County Sheriff's Department CPL Chase Drake on scene and we looked at the deceased black and white dog which had been shot in the head with a large-caliber rifle. The dog was lying about 15 yards from the property line and was on the victim's property. There was no blood trail from the property line to where the dog was lying. 

The neighboring property owner identified John Webb as the person deer hunting there that morning. CPL Drake made contact with Webb and asked him to come to meet us. Webb arrived and admitted to shooting a black and white dog because it was chasing a deer. 

Webb told me he used a .350 caliber Legend cartridge from an AR style rifle to shoot the dog. I had Webb show me from where he shot the dog. He took me to an elevated Redneck blind. I asked where the dog was when he shot it. He told me it was on the property he was hunting, chasing a deer when he shot it. 

He said it then hopped the fence and ran onto the victim's property where it fell down behind a log. He said he covered it with leaves, and he would've buried it if the ground wasn't hard.

The case was investigated by the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Jasper County Sheriff's Office.