{"id":364658,"date":"2026-08-06T21:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/364658\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T21:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:06:08","slug":"fort-myers-dad-accused-of-killing-kittens-as-punishment-for-his-teen-daughter-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/364658\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Myers dad accused of killing kittens as punishment for his teen daughter | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Fort Myers man is facing an aggravated animal cruelty charge after deputies say he killed two kittens and injured another.<\/p>\n

According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office<\/a>, deputies responded to a home in Pine Manor after receiving a report that a man was trying to drown and strike a two-month-old kitten named Luna.<\/p>\n

Witnesses identified the suspect as David Charette Jr. and told deputies he would abuse and kill the family’s kittens in front of his teenage daughter as a form of punishment when she “acted up.”<\/p>\n

During the investigation, detectives learned Charette Jr. had killed two kittens in the past year.<\/p>\n

In June, he allegedly smothered a one-month-old kitten with a rag soaked in bleach. In a separate situation, he allegedly killed a three-month-old kitten by burning it with a blow dryer.<\/p>\n

Investigators said both kittens had been buried in the backyard, but only one was recovered during a search of the property.<\/p>\n

Luna was taken to a local animal hospital where she received treatment and is now recovering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Fort Myers man is facing an aggravated animal cruelty charge after deputies say he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[12652,209,211,210,9189,12651,148146,28,897,21884,7692,28028,12654],"class_list":["post-364658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-animal-law","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-crimes","tag-cruelty-to-animals","tag-david-charette-jr","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-kitten","tag-lee-county-sheriff","tag-luna","tag-zoosadism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}