“We never bought Angelica to be a guard dog, we raised her to be a family house dog. We don’t have children of our own you see, our dogs are our children,” sobbed Ms Sanet Soalheiro.
Mr Miguel Soalheiro received a call from Secure Access at 14:30, informing him that the alarm had been activated, he told the company that his wife was at home and that they should call her.
About 15 minutes later his wife phoned to reassure him that everything was alright at the house and that he need not worry.
About 15 minutes passed when his wife phoned again.
“She was screaming hysterically saying that the security guard shot Angelica. She held onto her as she bled out from the neck and died in my wife’s arms,” said Soalheiro.
Soalheiro added that he could hear in his wife’s voice that she was devastated and traumatised by what had happened, he overheard his wife screaming at the guard “Why did you do it, why did you shoot my baby!”
“I told my wife to tell the guard to wait for me to get to the house, she told him to wait but he got into his vehicle and drove off,” said Soalheiro.
Soalheiro got into his car and raced home to be with his wife, while on the way home he tried contacting Mr Julian King, reaction manager at Secure Access and left him two voice mails explaining what had happened.
“I got through to their control room and was told that they were aware of the incident and that Julian would come to my house. I took about 15 minutes to get home, there were no vehicles outside, I went around the house and could hear my wife crying from within the house – I found her on the kitchen floor crying her heart out, she was broken, Angelica’s blood was all over her hands,” he continued.
His wife managed to point out where Angelica was lying, Soalheiro made his way over to the pup, she lay dead on the paving, her lifeless eyes still open. “I shook her but there was no reaction, I knew then she was dead, our three Dachshunds lay not far from her, they too were saddened,” he said.
Soalheiro tried once again to contact King, his phone went straight to voicemail, he then contacted the reaction office and was told that King was on the way to the doctors along with the guard who was supposedly bitten and was told that King would return his call.
“Julian called me back around 16:30 saying it was a tragedy and that he would like to set up a meeting with me on Monday to discuss the matter,” said Soalheiro.
Soalheiro contacted a friend by the name of Marlene, she has ties with the neighbourhood watch, she advised him to look for the shell casing. “We searched high and low and couldn’t find it,” he said.
According to Soalheiro’s wife, the guard entered the property through the front gate activating the beam alarm and did not ring the buzzer or knock at the front door as per protocol. She heard footsteps as someone ran across the wooden deck in the front yard – assuming there was an intruder.
“She heard a clamour as the guard climbed over our back gate and thud when he landed in the back yard, the dogs were barking and then she heard the gunshot,” said Soalheiro.
His wife ran to the front of the house and saw the guard casually walking through it to the front gate; she then went to the back yard where she found Angelica bleeding to death, gasping for her last breaths.
“After she screamed for him to wait for me to come to the house, the guard just left. He left her there with my dog dying in her arms – he showed no decency, that is cruel and heartless,” said Soalheiro.
Soalheiro contacted Animal Cruelty and was informed that the guard should have ensured the dog had died immediately and not bled to death or suffered from its wounds, it was an act of animal cruelty.
Secure Access was contacted for comment on the matter and when Mr Julian King was posed with the question of why the guard did not knock at the door or ring the buzzer, but instead jumped the wall, King responded that it is a difficult situation to comment on.
“We were supposed to have a meeting with the client but the meeting was cancelled, we would like to discuss the matter with the client before giving comment, To give comment without first speaking to the client would be unfair to us and to the client,” said King.
“We can confirm the bullet entered the middle lateral side of the neck and exited between the front legs at the start of the chest area,” said Dr Tobie Spies, the veterinary that carried out the post mortem on Angelica.
It was also discovered during the post mortem that there was severe bleeding from the wound.
