By Patti Weaver

  (Stillwater, Okla.) — A 39-year-old Stillwater man has been accused of punching a puppy that he allegedly said he was going to kill, and then punching the relative, who had given him the puppy, in the stomach while she was 17 weeks pregnant, according to court records.
    Neither the defendant, Jesse Wayne Burton, nor the puppy, could be located when Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Collin Seaton went to his residence at 12:37 am on June 19, about an hour after he interviewed the woman at the Stillwater Medical Center, an affidavit said.
    Burton was later arrested and released from the Payne County Jail on $10,000 bail on June 20, with an order to appear in court on July 24 on charges of animal cruelty and assault and battery on his pregnant relative.
    When the deputy was sent to the Stillwater Medical Center at 11:38 pm on June 18, Burton’s relative said that when she went to his residence at 8:06 pm, Burton was “very intoxicated and belligerent,” an affidavit alleged.
    She said, “she gave Jesse a puppy recently, but Jesse told (her) he could no longer keep the puppy and told her she had to take him back,” the affidavit alleged. She said, “she told Jesse she could not take the puppy back because she was not able to take care of him,” the affidavit alleged.
    “Once (she) told Jesse that, Jesse then began getting aggressive with the puppy. (She) told me he threw the puppy, and once the puppy got up, Jesse then began to kick and punch the puppy. (She) then told me she heard the puppy yelp. While Jesse was kicking and punching, the puppy ran and got behind (her).
    “(She) told me Jesse had kicked her arm, and then one of Jesse’s punches had hit (her) in the stomach. (She) then told me she was 17 weeks pregnant,” the deputy alleged in his affidavit.
    She said that when she was going to leave his residence, “Jesse told her he was going to kill the puppy,” the affidavit alleged. She said after she left, she arrived at the Stillwater Medical Center at about 10 pm, the affidavit said.
    After a nurse finished taking photos of her stomach, the deputy gave the woman a “Wings of Hope,” packet and said he would try to speak with Burton at his residence, the affidavit said.
    When the deputy arrived at Burton’s residence at 12:37 am, a woman said she had not seen him, but “he usually comes up to her residence if anything happens,” the affidavit said.
    “After walking through (that woman’s) residence, I walked back down to Jesse’s residence; I tried to locate Jesse or the puppy, but neither of them were at the residence,” the deputy wrote in his affidavit.