Man Shot Dead Trying to Save Abused Puppy

A 37-year-old Tennessee man was shot dead after challenging a man who was abusing a puppy, police say. Fiancee Sue Hoskins, who recently moved back to the state from Iowa with Robert Wilson, tells the Tennessean that he tried to stop a man who was holding a Yorkshire terrier puppy by the throat outside the extended-stay hotel room in Smyrna they'd been living in while looking for an apartment. "[I] went running out there to see Rob saying, 'Why are you doing that' and the guy said it was his puppy and he just shot him," says Hoskins, who tried to stop the bleeding after Wilson was shot in the chest. She says Wilson would have fought to save an abused animal "100 times over."

The suspect in the July 27 slaying, 35-year-old Donavous Jerome Drennon, surrendered to police last week and was charged with criminal homicide, reports the Murfreesboro Post. Rick Wilson, Robert Wilson's father, tells WSMV that his son got his love of animals from his late mother—and like her, he will have an animal on his tombstone. The puppy was turned over to Rutherford County PAWS, and Hoskins hopes she'll be allowed to adopt it. "We feel like Rob is kind of a part of that dog now, since he died to save it," says Jennifer Matzek, fiancee of Matt Wilson, Robert Wilson's younger brother. Matt Wilson has started a GoFundMe campaign to help Hoskins. (More animal cruelty stories.)