Cat killer case goes to jury

Updated at 4:05 p.m.

RIVERSIDE -- A jury began deliberating this morning in the trial of a former Upland resident accused of mutilating and killing cats at a motel in Corona.

Testimony was heard all day Wednesday in Timothy Kooyman's trial in Riverside Superior Court, and attorneys gave closing arguments this morning, according to minutes of the trial.

Jurors failed to reach a verdict today, and they will return to court Friday morning to continue deliberating.

Kooyman, 26, is charged with three counts of animal cruelty for allegedly luring three cats from a nearby residential neighborhood during a two-week stay at the National Inn Motel in April 2008.

According to a transcript of a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy's testimony at Kooyman's preliminary hearing, Kooyman confessed to breaking each of the cats' legs before killing them.

Kooyman said he killed one cat by running it over with his truck, decapitated another with an ax, and killed the third cat by slicing it to death with a razor, Alonzo Daniel testified.

Kooyman said he then threw the cats' bodies over a wall that separated the motel's property from a drug store parking lot, according to Daniel's testimony.

"He was cooperative," Daniel said of his interview with Kooyman. "In some of the questioning, he may have appeared to be embarrassed to answer some of the questions."

Kooyman was convicted last year of committing similar acts against cats in Rancho Cucamonga. He was sentenced to five years in prison in that case.