Suit: First She Threw His Phone, Keys Off Balcony. Next, His Dog

A Florida man is suing a woman he had been seeing after he alleges she hurled his pug off a seventh-floor balcony, killing it. In a Monday news conference, Eric Adeson explained that he and Shelley Nicole Vaughn, 46, lived in the same Clearwater apartment building, had dated off and on for about seven months, and had experienced some "rocky times." Things got especially rocky of late, and they had broken up, he says. But on Sunday morning, Vaughn called him from her apartment, upset over her sick mother, per the Washington Post. Adeson says he went to her apartment to help and found her drunk.

Adeson says after she refused a suggestion that they go for a walk, he went back to his own apartment, but she followed him, and he reluctantly let her in. In court documents, Clearwater police detail what Adeson alleges happened next: The couple started arguing, at which point Vaughn grabbed his cellphone and chucked it off the seventh-floor balcony. Then, after allegedly scratching and hitting Adeson, Vaughn is said to have grabbed his keys and thrown them over the balcony, at which point he says he threatened to call the cops. That's when, Adeson says, Vaughn "smiled," picked up his 3-year-old pug, Bucky, and threw him over the railing. "I started screaming, screaming and screaming," Adeson said at the presser.

Adeson says he pushed Vaughn out of his apartment, found a spare key to lock his other dog in, and was able to rush downstairs, where he found Bucky in a pool of his own blood. He notes that he cradled the pug, hoping in vain that "maybe he would get up," per WTVT. Adeson filed a civil suit on Monday, the same day that Vaughn was arrested. "I never thought anybody could do that," he says of his ex. "I never thought anybody would have that in them." Vaughn faces charges of felony cruelty to animals, domestic battery, and misdemeanor criminal mischief and has pleaded not guilty. She posted a $21,150 bond and was released Wednesday, per the Pinellas County Sheriff's office. (More animal cruelty stories.)