Weatherford man who stomped on kittens’ heads, tortured and killed them faces 40 years in prison

WEATHERFORD, Texas - Prosecutors say a man who was caught on video killing and torturing more than a dozen kittens at the Weatherford Animal Shelter could spend 40 years behind bars in combined sentences.

Animal Cruelty Conviction

What we know:

23-year-old Gabriel Caswell pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the remaining 12 animal cruelty charges he faced. 

Caswell was hired at the Weatherford shelter in 2023. Months later, the shelter noticed a spike in the number of kittens dying.

The shelter finally figured out what was happening when an employee walked in on Caswell abusing one of the kittens. They later discovered dozens of videos showing even more brutal killings and torture.

In previous trials for the first three charges, jurors watched videos of Caswell stomping on kittens, smashing their heads and necks in cages, kicking and throwing them across the room. He then threw them into a trash can.

Caswell told police detectives that he tortured the kittens out of anger and frustration from having a newborn that would not sleep and being unable to watch pornography, which he was addicted to.

"Sick and twisted person"

What they're saying:

"In my nearly 30 years as a prosecutor, I have seen some horrific things," said Parker County DA Jeff Swain. "However, I have never actually witnessed on video this particular kind of cruelty. To stare into the eyes of an innocent kitten while you literally snuff the life out of them like this defendant did takes a really sick and twisted person."

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"The conditions that the animals were being held in were some of the worst that my animal services people have ever seen," the police chief said.

"Both men and women on the juries were crying," said Parker County Asst. DA Ryan Whyte. "We never did get done playing all of the clips of the 15 kittens he was caught torturing because we just couldn’t subject our jurors to anymore."

What you can do:

The Parker County DA is encouraging citizens to write letters to the parole board to help ensure a lengthy prison sentence.

 "Now that he has that long prison sentence, I would imagine we will have a lot of people reaching out to ask the prison system to keep him incarcerated," said DA Swain. "It makes sense for us to collect those and send them to parole authorities in one or multiple large batches."

Anyone who wants to write a letter can send it to:

Parker County District Attorney’s Office
117 Fort Worth Highway
Weatherford, Texas 76086