Dog Dies After Owner's Friend Leaves It In Hot Vehicle On Highway

A man from Joliet, Illinois, was arrested Wednesday for leaving his friend’s pet dog to die in a hot car.

The accused, identified as 34-year-old Javier Franco, was dog-sitting the canine while his friend, Andy Mena, was out of the country earlier this month. On Aug. 11, Franco was driving Mena’s car from Illinois to Wisconsin with the one-year-old American pit bull terrier, named Ares, inside it when the vehicle broke down along the I-94. The same evening, an officer noticed the car with the windows rolled up. On a closer look, the officer found the canine lying motionless inside the vehicle.

"It is apparent that the dog suffered greatly before dying from the extreme heat inside the vehicle," the criminal complaint read.

The officer then contacted the man believed to be the owner of the dog and the car. However, it turned out that Franco impersonated Mena and also forged his signature in the police paperwork. An arrest warrant was issued against the accused on Aug.20, on charges of mistreatment of animals causing death and obstructing an officer.

Speaking to NBC-affiliated television station WMC-TV, Mena said his dog was loving and playful.

Recalling the incident, he said he received a call from Franco saying that the car was being towed from I-94 and the pet was in the vehicle.

"What really happened is that he left the car there because it broke down. He left all the windows up. The car ran out of gas and he never, ever decided to take the dog,” Mena said.

Officers found the canine curled up on the back floor with all the windows of the vehicle rolled up.

"No one could see him back there because he purposely tied him down so tight that he couldn't stand up. It's hard to take just knowing how bad that he suffered … and when you see the harness and you see the leash, on how hard he worked to free himself, he was fighting until the very end,” Mena’s girlfriend Melissa Gomez said.