JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A Jacksonville man is facing a felony animal cruelty charge after a dog was found dead inside his car, which had been submerged in Julington Creek at a popular public boat launch earlier this month.<\/p>\n
It started with an anonymous tip.<\/p>\n
Someone visiting Hood Landing Public Kayak Launch on Oct. 10 spotted what appeared to be a car trunk just beneath the water\u2019s surface at the end of the boat ramp and called it in to Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office, the arrest report said. <\/p>\n
Flooding on the road leading to the launch made it difficult for officers to get close, so they sent up a drone to take a look.<\/p>\n
What the drone found was troubling \u2014 oil or gasoline was rising to the surface of the water right where the caller said the car was located.<\/p>\n
JSO\u2019s dive team was called to the scene and confirmed a vehicle was submerged in the waterway. After making sure no one was trapped inside, divers worked with a towing crew to pull the car out, the report said.<\/p>\n
Getting the car out wasn\u2019t easy. To secure it for towing, the crew had to break out the rear driver\u2019s side window. That\u2019s when a deceased brown Pit mix dog floated out of the car.<\/p>\n
Animal Care and Protective Services responded and took photos of the scene before recovering the dog. Inside the car, the report said, officers also found dog leashes, toys, treats and a chain that matched the one still around the dog\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n
Officers traced the car back to Max Barker, 25. The next day, an officer met with Barker and let him know he was being investigated. <\/p>\n
Officers were waiting on results from a necropsy \u2014 essentially an animal autopsy \u2014 before making an arrest.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 19, those results came back. Officers went to Barker\u2019s home and arrested him. <\/p>\n
Barker is charged with one count of felony animal cruelty \u2014 specifically, intentionally causing the cruel death of an animal or causing unnecessary suffering \u2014 under Florida law. It is a third-degree felony.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A Jacksonville man is facing a felony animal cruelty charge after a dog was found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[265,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-433943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-crime","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433943","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=433943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}