SPRINGFIELD — The Westfield man who admitted to drowning a nursing cat in July 2024 and was indicted by a grand jury with felony animal cruelty and felony animal death by drowning is being held without bail after being charged with two misdemeanors in Westfield in October.
Donald C. Heenan, 68, of 23 George St., Westfield, was charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery in Westfield on Oct. 24 and pleaded not guilty after being arraigned in Westfield District Court, according to court records.
Because of the outstanding felony charges, his bail on those was revoked, and he was taken into custody and ordered held for 90 days without bail in the Hampden County House of Correction.
When arraigned, he was ordered to be evaluated to determine if he understood the charges and if he was competent to stand trial. He was scheduled for a competency hearing on Nov. 24, which was not held at the request of the state and Heenan, according to court records.
The felony charges were because of an incident that began on the morning of July 30, 2024.
One of the city’s animal control officers, Margaret Terkelsen, got a message from Heenan telling her that he had a cat in a humane trap he was using, and he wanted her to come to his home and pick it up, and that if she “didn’t want it,” he would dispatch it, she wrote in a report of the incident.
She immediately called Heenan’s number, and a man answered the phone, but when she identified herself, he hung up.
Because Terkelsen had an encounter with Heenan the day before — she described him as being “uncooperative” — she asked for a Westfield police officer to accompany her to his home. When they arrived, they asked Heenan where the cat was.
He told Terkelsen and the officer they had taken too long to arrive, and he “had drowned the cat,” she wrote.
When she asked if the cat was dead, he said yes.
Terkelsen and the police officer asked him to show them where he had disposed of the cat. Heenan said it was on a property on Pochassic Road.
Once they arrived and began looking for the cat, Heenan said to Terkelsen that she had told him he shouldn’t keep an animal in a trap for more than two hours the day before, and had drowned it because she didn’t get to his residence in time.
Once found, Terkelsen described the dead cat as a gray domestic shorthair female that appeared to have been nursing kittens. Its body showed signs of having been drowned.
After the police officer asked Heenan to show them how he had drowned the cat, the three went back to his home.
When they arrived, Heenan showed them the humane trap the cat was in, and how he placed the trap in a garbage bin filled with water, Terkelsen wrote.
When they opened the lid of the garbage bin, it was filled nearly to the top with water and fur floating on top, she wrote.
She asked him if the cat was alive before he put it in the garbage bin. He said yes.
He told the officers he put the cat in the bin, closed the lid, and waited at least 10 minutes for it to die, Terkelsen wrote.
Because Heenan holds licenses in Massachusetts and Connecticut as a problem animal control agent, which allows him to euthanize problem animals, they asked if drowning was his primary method of euthanizing the animals. He said it is because his permit to own a firearm had been revoked.
Because he can’t shoot them, he told Terkelsen, that if they are still alive after 10 minutes in the water, he takes them out of the barrel, puts them on the ground, and pushes their ribcage down with his foot to prevent them from breathing until they’re dead.
The officer with Terkelsen wrote in his report that Heenan said that drowning was a humane way because “he’s not cruel.”
When Heenan was arraigned in Superior Court in November 2024, he was on probation for two firearm-related charges stemming from 2021 incidents. He was charged with possession of ammunition with a permit and possession of a firearm without a permit, according to court records.
He returns to court for a hearing on Dec. 19.
