Jessica Rosita Schmidt, 33, of Castle Rock was sentenced to a year in jail Tuesday after pleading guilty to taping her pet dog’s snout shut, shooting him in the head and leaving him in a Toutle ditch last year.
“Cruel is an understatement,” Presiding Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Thad Scudder said at the hearing.
Schmidt can never own or live with any animals in the future. Her remaining charges of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, second-degree driving with a suspended or revoked license, and a first-degree attempted animal cruelty were dismissed.
She has a history of animal abuse. Court records show witnesses told Cowlitz County deputies they saw Schmidt hurt her white English retriever named Baylor before the PUD workers found him injured on Nov. 2, 2023, on the side of Spirit Lake Memorial Highway.
Philp Dufresne, of Castle Rock, said he was her former next-door neighbor, and told the court similar accounts.
Dufresne alleged Schmidt abused other dogs she owned before Baylor, who is now named Trooper and adopted by Cowlitz County PUD worker Dylan Shulda who found him.
“This ain’t her first rodeo,” Dufresne said about Schmidt’s animal abuse.
In addition, court records show Schmidt has a criminal history that includes second-degree theft, third-degree assault with bodily harm, taking a motor vehicle without permission in the second degree, and driving with a suspended license. All of these incidents occurred in 2017 in Lewis County.
Schmidt’s attorney Daniel Alexander Mellen, who has offices in Vancouver and Longview, told Scudder his client is “very remorseful of her actions.”
“She feels terrible,” he said.
However, when corrections officers removed Schmidt from the courtroom, she flipped off the gallery, where the public sits.
The start of the hearing had similar friction. When Schmidt left the gallery to enter the courtroom, Dufresne yelled from the audience “Enjoy jail,” to which she replied “Two months ain’t sh-t.”
Scudder ignored the prosecutor’s recommendation of a two-month stint in county jail, opting for a year instead.
Shulda and his wife Shelly, of Longview, were also at the sentencing. Shelly Shulda said Trooper may need surgery down the line. The shooting caused damage to an optic nerve and is affecting one of his eyes.
A police report states the dog sustained a close contact gunshot wound from a small caliber gun, with the bullet fragmenting inside his head.
Shelly Shulda said the sentence was just.
“One year is better than two months,” she said.
