An Adel man was arrested on a Dallas County warrant Tuesday in connection with a May incident in which he allegedly bludgeoned a cat to death with a baseball bat.
Daniel William Harley Wolfe, 30, of 2121 Greene St., Adel, was arrested for failure to appear on an original charge of animal abuse.
The incident in which Wolfe killed the cat began May 7, 2022, when a caller to the Adel Police Department requested a welfare check on Wolfe, who was “hearing voices telling him to kill his cat” and was “thinking about breaking the cat’s neck,” according to court records.
The caller told law enforcement that Wolfe “was sending texts to her saying he now hit the cat in the head with a baseball bat.”
Wolfe told the responding officers that “he killed his cat with a baseball bat because he had a long stressful day, and voices started telling him to kill it. He said he was sorry for what he did, but the voices were telling him to do it,” according to court records.
The officers observed blood in the bathroom of Wolfe’s residence and on a baseball bat and found a dead cat inside a garbage bag in the dumpster at Wolfe’s residence, according to court records.
A warrant for Wolfe’s arrest was ordered May 27, 2022, in Dallas County District Court and served June 1. Wolfe was held in the Dallas County Jail on a $2,000 bond prior to his arraignment July 5 in Dallas County District Court. A pretrial conference originally scheduled for Aug. 11 was eventually held Oct. 20, but Wolfe failed to appear.
A warrant for Wolfe’s arrest was ordered Oct. 20, 2022, in Dallas County District Court and served March 21, 2023. He is held in the Dallas County Jail on a $2,000 cash or surety bond.
Wolfe was convicted in September 2018 of assault causing bodily injury or mental illness after assaulting his father and “punching him in the head multiple times,” according to court records. Wolfe told a Waukee Police Department officer the assault occurred when “he was playing a computer game and became frustrated.”
While awaiting trail for assaulting his father, Wolfe assaulted a fellow inmate in the Dallas County Jail by “punching him in the face,” according to court records. He was convicted of the second assault causing bodily injury or mental illness in September 2018. Wolfe told corrections officers he assaulted the inmate because Wolfe was “not getting his medication for anger issues,” and “without his medication he could not handle it.”
Wolfe was convicted of assault causing bodily injury or mental illness in 2019 after he punched a woman “multiple times in the nose, making the victim’s nose bleed,” at a mall in West Des Moines. He was convicted of assault in 2021 after he punched a Kum and Go clerk in the face in Adel.
*A criminal charge is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
