A Las Cruces man who was charged with extreme animal cruelty in the deaths of five beagles later kept a SWAT team at bay during a seven-hour standoff at his home.

  (Photo courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News)  Mark Burbano, 47, was charged with five counts of extreme animal cruelty and one count of obstructing an officer, Dona Ana County animal control supervisor Curtis Childress said.

Burbano was being held at a hospital undergoing a psychiatric evaluation and will be arrested after being discharged.

Childress said the five dogs were poisoned. Investigators are trying to determine what was used to poison them, but the toxic substance apparently was mixed with dog food and fed to the beagles using a tin pan.

Update 9/22/08:  A Las Cruces man whose dogs were allegedly poisoned said he does not know why his dogs, described as family, were killed.

  (Photo courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News - Prescott leans on the cage where his five beagles, Fiona, Digger, Dufus, Sherry & Snoopia were poisoned)  Steven Prescott, still shaken about his dogs' deaths, sat at his kitchen table and spoke of his five beagles as if they were still in his backyard.

"And they would chase each other. They're conceptual, they're funny little things," Prescott, 66, said.

Then reality set in and tears came to his eyes.  "That's the last time I saw them," Prescott said of the beagles, describing how all five were loaded into an animal control truck, on their way for a necropsy in Albuquerque. "It didn't do any good to keep them here. They were all dead."

While Prescott was in his home on Campbell Road, when an acquaintance, identified by animal control investigators as Mark Burbano , 47, allegedly poisoned and killed Prescott's 5-year-old female beagles named Fiona, Digger, Dufus, Sherry and Snoopia.

Burbano was taken into custody at his home where he kept a SWAT team at bay for more than seven hours.

He was charged with five counts of fourth-degree extreme animal cruelty and one count of resisting an officer.  Each cruelty count carries a maximum of 18 months in prison.

Burbano remained at a local hospital undergoing a psychological evaluation. He will be arrested once released.

Investigators have said the dogs were most likely poisoned when dog food soaked in antifreeze was fed to them.

"We looked over and all the dogs were laying there. They were laying there dead...We thought that the dogs were asleep. There was one that was breathing just a little bit. We tried to revive the last one, we we're breathing for it, but we couldn't" save it, Prescott said.

Prescott says he is "Griped. I feel pretty bad," about the death of his dogs, which he received as a gift when they were puppies. The retiree lives alone and has one cat in addition to the dogs.

Prescott has been acquainted with Burbano for a few years, but doesn't know what motivated the alleged poisonings. He attributed it to what he said was Burbano's history with mental illness.

Bill Hart of Las Cruces, who runs Beagle/Basset Hound Rescue of New Mexico, said he was saddened to read the story of the dogs' death.  "Being a beagle lover, and being with beagle rescue, I don't know if there's been a story that's upset me as much as this one," Hart said.

According to Hart, beagles are a breed with a particularly strong appetite that will eat almost any food that is given to them.  "Beagles, you have to watch how you feed them because they will eat themselves to death," he said. "Any food you put in front of them, they will eat all of it until it's gone."  Hart said he will offer assistance to Prescott, "even if it's just a shoulder."

Reference:

Las Cruces Sun-News

KRQE