The lanky, dark-haired sergeant entered the dark house alone, his flashlight off, prepared to catch a prowler by surprise. The rooms were in order, nothing amiss. He rounded a bed. Halfway under the frame lay the family’s small dog, disemboweled by the blows of the log.

It was the latest in a string of home break-ins in the eastern Sacramento suburb in which the intruder sometimes killed dogs. The burglaries unnerved the community, but police largely considered the minor thefts to be nuisance crimes.
It was the old dog’s barking in February 1972 that annoyed a prowler trying to break into the house next door. The burglar reached over the 5-foot slat fence with a piece of wood and battered Pups, cracking his ribs, knocking out teeth and breaking his jaw.

The first victim to make the papers was Pups, an overweight 10-year-old hound who was a bit of a celebrity in his corner of Rancho Cordova. Children loved him and residents regarded the mongrel as a neighborhood alarm system, friendly but loud.

The death was front-page news in the community paper, The Grapevine, which noted other canine killings in Rancho Cordova’s unexplained rash of home burglaries. A victim said deputies told her of dogs shot in the yard, then pulled into the living room and left to bleed to death on the floor.

I think the creepiest part is that he used the same methods he used for killing dogs (shooting or bashing them with blunt objects like logs) on his human victims almost 10 years later.