EUCLID, Ohio — A woman accused of beating a baby deer to death with a shovel after finding it in her flower garden has been sentenced to 80 hours of community service.

Seventy-six-year-old Dorothy Richardson of the Cleveland suburb of Euclid pleaded no contest Thursday to one misdemeanor count of animal abuse and was found guilty by a municipal court judge, who also ordered Richardson to pay a $500 fine.

Richardson says she became frightened when she saw the fawn in her garden on June 15 and had meant to shoo it away with the shovel.

Earlier, she pleaded not guilty to two animal abuse counts. One charge was dropped in exchange for her new, no contest plea.

80 hours huh? She should be forced to go out and rebuild habitat that was lost during home construction for 80 days. I don't care if she is 76, there's no excuse for this kind of butt****ery.

If it was a deadly animal and she was scared and fighting for her life, I'm OK with her beating it to death.
HOWEVER... a FAWN?? A F@#@*&g BABY DEER?? Come on? She was scared of a baby deer??? I don't buy it. That's just horrible.

OK A CLEAR CASE OF SELF DEFENSE........ IN MICHIGAN WE HAVE SO MANY CAR DEER ACCIIDENT THIS TIME OF YEAR....... AND SOME PEOPLE DIE OR SEVERALLY INJURED.......

hmm, 76 years old,, do we know how CLEAR HEADED she was? Some folks dont age well.

Bambi..

I shoot them with a bb gun

Someone should beat her with a shovel...People like that make me soooo

So should we run out there and beat all the potential idiots with shovels that also could cause accidents?

i like that idea, i'm sure i have a shovel around somewhere lol

A fawn is less dangerous than an Elk..if she had seen that she most likely would have been trampled to death, but the fawn, she could have just walked a few feet to it and shoo'd if off, no harm done. Besides isn't is illegal to kill a fawn or doe anyway? Regardless if it's hunting or right in your back yard?

BUT THE FAWN SHOULD HAVE RUN, MAYBE IT HAD RABBIS

or maybe it was terrified of her? The whole "Deer caught in a headlights" where they are stunned and don't move. If she ran out there and whacked it with a shovel, I doubt it could have ran from her.

Not all animals reacte the same way. Fawns are generally peaceful, in fact some will let you touch them or they will walk up to you and smell you then just walk off. That fawn could have been there several times and became a bit "tame"....thats not uncommon these days. I have had a fawn walk up to me, smell me and then it let me pet it..it walked around eating the grass.

You can't assume that the animal is going to just take off.

There are people who are deathly afraid of animals, all animals, even the cute ones. I feel bad for her if she is one of these people.

This was my thought. She may have been in good enough physical condition to do gardening still, but we don't really know her mental state.

My 80 year old grandmother is in good mental health. But not all people are when they hit their middle to late 70's. We don't have that info on her.

As a former ohioan,,I can answer this. Deer can reach troublesome numbers in some parts of Ohio and do in fact cause many accidents. I am an admirer of deer and we had a family of them that regularly visited our yard so I am not particularly PRO HUNT, but it isnt illegal to kill them in ohio because they are so overpopulated.

WHAT IF IT WAS THE OTHER WAY
AROUND IT WAS A 10 OR 12 POINT BUCK THAT KILLED HER OR A YOUNG CHILD...........THINK ABOUT IT..........

How many deer do you know that have Jewish ministers?

The courts obviusly found that she was lucid enough to perform community service. This is just cruelty plain and simple. Hunting is one thing, but putting any creature, unless it is a danger, through that kind of death makes me ill.