Tortured and 'cooked' dog found in city park with candles and beer cans

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She told the Humane Society that the body was in the middle of a fire pit that had been started with new 2-by-4 boards. An empty bag labeled "premium cooking wood" was beside the pit. Empty beer containers and candles surrounded the area, near the fishing dock within sight of Diagonal Drive, the Humane Society said. The witness said the ashes were still warm.

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Investigators took possession of the carcass, which was later delivered to the LSU Vet School Diagnostic Lab for testing. Investigators said veterinary pathologists conducted a necropsy on the body and discovered several "horrifying details."

1. The dog was an adult intact male terrier type, possibly a Jack Russell terrier. The cranium was fractured in many places, which could have been either a result of repeated blows from a blunt object or from the bursting of the cranium from the heat of the fire.

Additional tests have been ordered to try to determine the exact cause of death and if the dog died before being placed in the fire.

2. The shelf of bone (nasal bone) that separates the right and left nasal passages was broken across its long axis.

3. The dog's lower right jaw was broken in half across its length. The lower jaw showed signs of being healed from a older fracture, which means that the dog had been subjected to cruel treatment before this episode.

4. The dog had been pierced or speared in two places with an elongated object. The first puncture wound stretched from the middle of the back into the abdominal cavity. The second puncture wound entered the base of the tail and extended through the gluteal muscles. It is unclear if the body produced these openings from the heat of the fire or whether they occurred before.

5. Some of the dog's organs had been cooked after the animal was placed in the fire. Most of its body was charred.

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