BLUFF SIDING, Wis. — A Winona man was charged with beating his girlfriend’s dog to death at the Winona municipally owned Aghaming wildlife preserve on Latsch Island. Quintin James Ehlo, age 21, was charged in Wisconsin’s Buffalo County, which has legal jurisdiction. The girlfriend told sheriff’s deputies that Ehlo called her July 10 thar the dog, a German shepherd named Tru, was “not doing well.” Come right away to Aghaming Park, he said. At the park she found Tru dead It was heat stroke, she said Ehlo told her. An autopsy revealed. however, that the dog died of blunt-force trauma, —not the heat. She and Ehlo had shared a Winona apartment a few months after moving from Arizona. She said Ehlo took Tru without permission while she was napping. He had commented frequently how hated the dog, she said. Tru, who was 7 or 8 years old, was a service animal registered to the girlfriend.Echlo was charged with mistreatment of an animal causing death, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct.
Aghaming Park profile
The 1,900-acre park is a strip of wild bottomland across the Mississippi River from Winona. Lumber baron John Katsch bequeathed the land to the city in 1934. The park is one of the best-preserved floodplain forests in the country. It’s on the Mississippi flyway, a major migratory route, and a a bird-watching paradise. The park is managed jointly by the City of Winona with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Legal jurisdiction is murky because the park, being east of the Mississippi main channel, is in Wisconsin’s Buffalo County.