Woman Admits She Stabbed Her Pet Cat 20 Times ‘Because She Was Too Cute’

A 20-year-old Australian woman stabbed her pet cat 20 times “because she was too cute,” a court heard. Celina Paige Shead from Sydney killed 11-year-old Ginger before throwing the animal’s body out the window, later telling prosecutors that she wanted to “squish the life out of” the feline, MailOnline reports. She has since been jailed for the crime.

  1. Shead was already having trouble with the law. Roughly a week before she cruelly killed her pet cat, she was sentenced on 30 unrelated charges at the very same court. The charges included property damage, assault, grievous bodily harm, resisting arrest, and dozens more. She was put on an intensive corrections order when Ginger died.
  2. Her neighbor called emergency services. After Shead threw the cat’s body off the balcony, the authorities were called and Shead was arrested from her apartment in Dee Why. She was then taken to Northern Beaches Hospital for a mental health assessment for being turned over the police. A Manly Local Court judge denied her bail and charged her with torture, beating an animal to death, and aggravated animal cruelty.
  3. Her father revealed she had a history of mental health problems. While this isn’t difficult to understand, it does make it all the more likely that she needs to be in custodial care to keep her from harming herself or others in future. Anyone who could kill a beloved family pet in such a violent and heartless way could easily escalate to killing human beings as well.
  4. The cat had only been adopted the week before. Paperwork found in the apartment showed that Ginger had been adopted from the local RSPCA as a therapy cat, though Shead’s father told police that his daughter’s borderline personality disorder meant that she never bonded with the animal. Thankfully, a second cat living in the apartment was rescued and deemed to be unharmed.
  5. She showed no remorse for what she’d done. In addition to smirking about her terrible deed during police questioning, Police prosecutor Adrian Walsh told the court that Shead admitted to psychologists that the animal was “so cute” that she couldn’t help but want to “squeeze the life out of it.” He said: “This isn’t an incident of cruelty by way of neglect. This was a small vulnerable animal subjected to deliberate cruelty. It was an abhorrent act of cruelty.”
  6. Shead will now spend two years behind bars. She has also been barred from owning an animal for life.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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