MACON, Ga.- The pig was positively identified as this guy in the Facebook post below posted by the Bibb County Sheriff's Office on Monday.
The owner of a pig in east Macon asked a man to kill the animal so it could be processed.
He obliged - or at least he tried to.
Deputies answered the call for animal cruelty at 3331 Kings Park Circle at about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. It was reported that some construction workers heard gunshots.
Immediately after hearing the gunshots, they saw a pig running down the road with a pickaxe in its back and a man chasing after it, according to a Bibb Sheriff's Office news release states.
Turns out that man chasing the pig, Freddie Phelps Sr., 62, struck the pig with other objects and shot it, according to the news release.
"We heard the gunshots, then we heard the pig squealing, and the biggest thing in my mind was watching the pig run down the road squealing with the [pickaxe] in its back," Tim Montgomery said.
He was doing construction down the street. He thought for sure the pig was dead after that, but it wasn't.
"Two or three hours later, that's when we heard it again, going on over there. They were actually beating it with sticks and it was squealing again," Montgomery said. "That's when I snapped and decided to call 911."
The severely injured pig was found behind a home in the 3300 block of Kings Park Circle. A county animal control worker on the scene asked the deputy to put the pig down to end its suffering.
The deputy obliged and shot it, the news release states.
As for Phelps, he was taken to jail and charged with aggravated cruelty to animals. That's a felony in Georgia.
"The point at which they discharged a firearm and it didn't kill the pig, the continued beating and hitting it with shovels, sticks, and an ax constitute animal cruelty under Georgia law," Animal Welfare Director Sonja Adams said. "It caused prolonged suffering."
As for the owner of pig, she still didn't get to have the animal processed.
The pig was examined and photographed at the home since Macon-Bibb County Animal Welfare had no way to move the few hundred pound pig. The pig was left in the owner's backyard, according to Adams.
