Mother-of-four who threw her maggot-infested bulldog Zoe to her death off a cliff avoids jail

A pet owner who threw her emaciated dog off a cliff while still in her kennel has avoided time behind bars after a successful court appeal.

Kaylah Jade Williams, 35, was sentenced in August to a minimum of seven months in prison after a runner heard her 13-year-old bulldog, Zoe, screaming at the foot of a cliff on Mount Keira near Wollongong in early 2023. .

NSW SES crews found the dog severely underweight and with a maggot-infested open wound caused by a tumor on her abdomen at the time.

Zoe was so sick that she had to be euthanized by a veterinarian to end her pain.

In August’s sentencing, Magistrate Mark Douglass said Williams’ “callous indifference to a living being” warranted a prison sentence.

But Williams successfully appealed her sentence at the Wollongong District Court on Friday to avoid the full custody component of the sentence.

Instead, her sentence was increased to 16 months, with a non-parole period of 12 months, which she served in the community as part of an intensive corrections order.

She was reportedly shocked when Judge William Fitzsimmons SC read out the grounds of her appeal to the court, stating that Williams threw her dog off the clifftop because she did not have the money to humanely euthanize her.

An SES crew (pictured) recovered the pet from the area and discovered she could not lift her body and had a large tumor with an open wound

“The appellant was in extremely difficult financial circumstances at the time the perpetrator lost her job amid the Covid pandemic in circumstances where she was the single mother of four young children,” he said. News.com.au.

The judge noted that she had been “ostracized” from her community because of the crime.

He ultimately found she was unlikely to pose a further risk to the community.

Williams pleaded guilty in July to torturing and causing the bulldog’s death after locking her in a kennel and throwing her over the edge of the cliff, although she initially pleaded not guilty and denied any involvement after her arrest last April.

In sentencing, Magistrate Douglas described the act as torturous Illawarra Mercury reported.

“If you deliberately board a dog in a kennel, transport him to the area in a box truck … and then tip the kennel over the edge of a very steep slope, he offends our community’s basic sense of humanity and decency,” said him against Williams. .

The runner who found the bulldog heard her cries from the bottom of the cliff.

The subsequent police investigation turned up CCTV footage of Williams reversing her silver Honda CRV from her partner’s property, with a dog kennel loaded into a trailer.

It also showed Williams’ return to the property two hours later with no sign of the kennel in the car or trailer.

Kaylah Jade Williams narrowly avoided a stint behind bars after a successful appeal Friday

The dog was found at the foot of a cliff near Clive Bissell Drive (pictured) on Mount Ousley

After reading Williams the outcome of her appeal, he told her she would face full-time detention if she breached the terms of the ICO.

He clarified that Williams was still sentenced to prison.

‘Although I have determined that the prison sentence will be served as an intensive corrections order in the community, there should be no doubt that if you breach any of the conditions [of the ICO] … you understand that you could end up back where you were when you had a full prison sentence.”

Williams has been ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.