'Monster' gets 4+ years in prison for beheading cat and forcing disabled roommate to watch

FREEHOLD - He slit his pet cat's tongue and decapitated her while forcing his disabled roommate to watch.

He told investigators he wanted to keep the pet's head as a trophy.

Then, he assaulted his roommate, a 59-year-old woman who is developmentally and physically disabled.

Christopher Sanchez took advantage of the roommate and "created a house of horrors in her own home,'' Sevan Biramian, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, said in court Thursday after describing the crimes Sanchez was about to be sentenced for.

"Christopher Sanchez is a monster,'' the defendant's victim told Superior Court Judge Scott C. Arnette.

The Asbury Park Press is identifying the victim only by her initials, T.C., at the request of prosecutors.

"He is very malicious and he is a psychopath,'' T.C. said, appearing at Sanchez's sentencing hearing via the online platform ZOOM.

Arnette doled out a 4 1/2-year prison term to Sanchez, 29, of Howell for animal cruelty, and a concurrent, six-month term for simple assault on his roommate.

Sanchez' punishment for killing the cat is just six months shy of the statutory, five-year maximum prison term for animal cruelty involving death.

Sanchez pleaded guilty Dec. 5 to animal cruelty by unnecessarily or cruelly abusing an animal, resulting in death, and to simple assault on his roommate.

He was arrested March 31 when Howell police responded to the area on an unrelated matter and found the body of the pet cat named "Lilith'' outside. The cat had been dead for two days.

Authorities said Sanchez used a sharp object to kill the feline and then attacked his roommate afterward.

The gruesome details of the cat's demise, however, weren't revealed until Sanchez's sentencing hearing.

His former roommate, T.C., provided the specifics for the judge.

"He called me a big, fat, ugly pig while he was in the bathroom dismembering Lilith,'' T.C. said. "He first performed surgery on its tongue before he killed it. He mutilated her tongue, and Lilith couldn't move her eyes. It was sheer horror.

"Then he yelled at me for not wanting it to get mercy killed,'' T.C. continued. "He blamed me that I was wrong.''

T.C. said she suspects Sanchez has killed "many cats in the neighborhood.'' She said he forced her to watch gory videos of a man torturing and killing a dog.

"He told me, 'I want to kill you so badly,''' T.C. said.

"He is a mentally ill mess,'' she said. "He has no shame or moral compass.''

T.C. told the judge she believes Sanchez will kill again if he is released from prison.

"I would expect him to get a long jail term because he murdered a lot of animals,'' T.C. said.

"There is a sadistic quality underlying this defendant's actions,'' Biramian told the judge.

"He decapitated a cat that shared the name of his what he claims alleged 6-month-old deceased daughter,'' the assistant prosecutor said. "He wanted to save its head as a trophy.''

Prosecutors said they were unable to confirm that Sanchez ever had a daughter who died.

Sanchez has "a sociopathic relationship with the truth,'' Biramian said.

The defendant told police he committed another mercy killing of a person when he was 14, and  "that he got away with it because he paid off the Paterson police,'' the assistant prosecutor said.

"There is no indication that that has any basis in truth,'' Biramian said.

The assistant prosecutor said Sanchez photographed and videotaped his abuse of Lilith, so as to re-enact the gore video he watched.

"He got pleasure out of it,'' Biramian said.

"He's shown he's unable to suppress his depraved desires,'' the assistant prosecutor said of Sanchez.

Sanchez's attorney, Kimberly Roman, argued Sanchez was "living in a fog,'' drinking and taking pills, during that time period, after both his parents died in 2020 as the rest of the world was mentally struggling with the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic.

"Mr. Sanchez himself was in a place in his life where he was very vulnerable,'' Roman said.

Biramian, however, said there was no indication Sanchez was intoxicated when he committed the offenses, not that intoxication would be a defense to them.

"The precision and physical control of his action to slit the cat's throat and separate the head from the body, I think that contradicts his claim that he was drunk,'' the assistant prosecutor said.

"He's depraved, he's not drunk,'' Biramian said of the defendant.

Roman asked the judge to take into consideration as a mitigating factor that Sanchez is willing to make restitution for the cost of the necropsy performed on Lilith.

Arnette said he did not see that to be a mitigating factor, nor could he find any mitigation for Sanchez's crimes.

The necropsy was performed in an attempt to support Sanchez's defense claim of a mercy killing of the cat after she was hit by a car, the judge said. The necropsy found no broken bones or anything else to support Sanchez's claim that the cat was struck by a vehicle, Arnette said.

Sanchez apologized before he learned his sentence.

"I just want to say that I'm sorry to the victim and I feel horrible for what I've done,'' he said.

Arnette, however, said the probation officer who interviewed Sanchez prior to sentencing noted in his pre-sentence report that the defendant displayed no remorse for his crimes.

As part of the sentence, the judge ordered Sanchez to reimburse the state for the $525 cost of the necropsy.

Arnette also ordered Sanchez to perform 30 days of community service once he is released from prison, which is mandated under the animal cruelty statute. And, he issued a final restraining order forbidding Sanchez from contacting his former roommate, ordered that he surrender any firearms and permanently barred the defendant from every owning any animals.

Sanchez's case was one of two particularly shocking instances of alleged animal cruelty against cats in Monmouth County last year.

In the other case, Bani J. Mezquititla, 19, is accused of repeatedly raping his pet cat, Ellie, sexually abusing her with a pencil, torturing her by repeatedly strangling her with a pulley device while binding her paws behind her back with miniature handcuffs, dissecting her tongue and jaw while she was still alive and ultimately killing her and throwing the dead pet out of his apartment window.

The Asbury Park man was arrested in that case on March 2 after his roommate reported the abuse to police. The charges against Mezquititla are pending.

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Howell man who beheaded his cat gets 4 1/2-year prison term