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Llama Killer Charged With Violating Probation

Tribune file photo

Robert Pettyjohn consults with his attorney, Chip Purcell, in a Pinellas County courtroom in April 2002. He was sentenced to five years in prison and five years of probation for killing a llama and torturing and killing a goat.

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2008

  Robert Pettyjohn

LAND O’ LAKES - Robert Pettyjohn, who authorities said was part of one of the worst local animal cruelty sprees in recent history, is back in jail on a probation violation charge.

Pettyjohn, 25, is being held without bail at Land O' Lakes Jail. He was arrested about noon today.

Officials said Pettyjohn violated his 9 p.m. curfew on Friday. They said Pettyjohn went to Orlando without the permission of his probation officer.

Pettyjohn was sentenced in Hillsborough County to three years in prison for using a bow and arrows to shoot bulls in Odessa in 2001. He received a concurrent five-year term in Pinellas County on other cruelty charges.

Authorities said Pettyjohn and Brandon Eldred used a golf club to sodomize and kill a nursing mother llama and gouge the eye out of a baby llama in rural East Lake in Pinellas.

Eldred received a three-year sentence in both counties. He originally was placed on house arrest but was sent to prison after seven violations of the terms of his house arrest.

The Llama attack was the culmination of a two-month crime spree in early 2001. The string of incidents included killing one bull and injuring another in an Odessa pasture, torturing a goat to death in East Lake, and using a meat cleaver to slice open the face of a llama off Old Keystone Road in Pinellas. The pair said they were high on drugs and alcohol.

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