Michael Stackhouse

A Cedar Springs man convicted of killing a cat outside his home was sentenced last week to serve 16 months to nine years in prison.

Michael Patrick Stackhouse, 35, killed the cat in Cedar Springs Mobile Estates last April by stomping on it. It had reportedly jumped over a partial door barrier and entered his mobile home on Susan Street. His wife called 911 and reported it was fighting with their dogs, then told dispatch her husband may have killed it. Officers found that the man had thrown the cat into the street, and killed it in front of children and neighbors. He admitted to stomping on the cat’s head, because it was twitching from seizures. He told reporters that he did it to put it out of its misery.

He rejected a plea deal in May that would have reduced his sentence if he pled guilty to a charge of animal cruelty causing death. Under the plea deal, he would not have been charged as a multiple felony offender and would have faced no more than a year in jail.