GENESEE COUNTY (WWJ) – Three people are facing charges for brutal animal abuse and killing in Genesee County, including a Pontiac man and a Flint-area woman accused of making a “crush video.”
Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson detailed the gruesome, separate cases in a press conference shared to the department’s Facebook page on Thursday.
In the crush video case, 32-year-old Jeffrey Meadows has been charged with third-degree killing/torturing of an animal.
Cheyenne O’Berry, 28, is facing two felonies, including killing/torturing and using a computer to commit a crime.
Swanson says crush videos – which became popular in the late 90s until federal legislation in 1998 prohibited them – are typically filmed with women with a bare heel or wearing a stiletto heel. Most of the time they are unclothed and use their foot to crush the skull of a small animal.
“They sell it to the most darkest, deviant, sexually predatory people on the planet, who buy these crush videos because of a sexual fetish,” Swanson said, noting the videos appear to be gaining popularity again.
The sheriff’s department obtained video from 2021, allegedly filmed by Meadows, of O’Berry allegedly crushing a domesticated rat, with a cell phone underneath a glass table and another angle from the side.
The sheriff’s office showed graphic images of the alleged incident during Thursday’s press conference.
Warning: This press conference contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some
In a separate case detailed on Thursday, Swanson said 34-year-old Nicholas Jaco has been charged with second-degree killing/torturing.
Jaco, who Swanson says needed a service dog after being discharged from non-deployment military service, got a German Shepherd named Tink. After bringing the dog home, Swanson says Jaco “decided that he no longer wanted to care for this service dog.”
Instead of asking someone else to care for the dog, he allegedly left Tink in his apartment for two weeks without food or water and cracked the window an inch or two “so the smell didn’t permeate the rest of the apartment.”
He allegedly returned to the apartment to check his mail during that period, but “at no time gave the dog aid.”
The dog eventually died in its cage, according to Swanson.
Swanson said he shared the graphic details of the cases to remind people that “there are people out there” who do terrible things to animals.
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