Raging Man Throws Dog from IPN Terrace

At 80 North Moore Street in Independence Plaza, tenants might not know their next door neighbors, much less like them. But they almost certainly knew and loved Ribsy.

So when the frisky 17-year-old poodle-terrier mix was murdered on the quiet Sunday morning of May 26, shock and anger rippled through the complex.

"It affected me like he was a human. He was the nicest dog in the whole building," said John Calvo, adding that the dog, often unleashed, was so smart, he could walk himself. "If he was tall enough, he would have pushed the button and taken the elevator back up." Ribsy was the beloved pet of IPN resident Eugenia Miller. Her ex-boyfriend, John Jefferson, 43, threw the dog from her 23rd-floor apartment in a rage, according to police. "He came to the door looking all drugged out," said Miller’s nephew Stan whom she adopted. "He kind of forced his way in." Locked out by Jefferson, Stan Miller said he heard screams, then rang doorbells trying to get help. A police spokeswoman said Eugenia Miller was able to leave the apartment when the police arrived. Miller told police that Jefferson had a knife. Jefferson barricaded himself in the apartment. He threw clothes, magazines, a television set and other appliances off the terrace. Then, police say, he threw Ribsy.

Police apparently thought that Jefferson might be holding Miller’s teenaged daughter captive, although in fact she was away from home. As a hostage negotiating team and cops in riot gear arrived, residents milled in the lobby and outside, unable to return to their apartments as events unfolded. Police broke down the door and arrested Jefferson without a struggle, the police said. He was charged with two counts of robbery, cruelty to animals, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal mischief, in connection with allegedly threatening Eugenia Miller with a knife. Police and the District Attorney’s office would not release Jefferson’s arrest record, but neighbors said that Miller had called the police on him two days earlier. One IPN nighbor, Nathan Weber, recalled coming to Miller’s defense in 1997, when he saw Jefferson raise his fist to her as she screamed for help.

"I said, ‘Don’t hit her any more,’" Weber said. "He came over and punched me three or four times in the head and knocked me down." Weber said he had pressed charges and that Jefferson was convicted of attempted assault, sentenced to a year’s community service and ordered to stay away from Miller’s building for a year.

"A year later," Weber said, "I saw him back in the building with her."

The day after Ribsy’s death, M. J. Bettenhausen, another 80 North Moore St. resident, placed purple orchids and a blue candle on the bloodstained plaza where the dog had died.