‘The brutality… is stunning’: Brandon man sentenced to five years in prison for animal-cruelty spree

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This article was published 09/05/2025 (220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon man has been sentenced to five years in prison for killing an “alarming” number of animals.

Jess Nichols, 30, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of animal cruelty after he killed 25 animals during a five-month period in 2022.

“The level of violence involved and the brutality with which he killed them is stunning,” provincial court Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said in a decision delivered this week in Brandon.

In June 2022 Nichols’ roommate called police after finding several dead kittens outside their home.

The decision detailed the roommate describing Nichols as a meth addict with mental-health problems. She explained witnessing abusive behaviour by Nichols in the past, such as picking animals up by the limbs and hitting them.

When officers arrived at the home, police found and seized a tote container with eight dead kittens. Injuries and dried blood were visible, the decision said.

About five months later, Nichols was arrested for violating bail conditions prohibiting him from having pets after citizens alerted the office of the Chief Veterinary Officer about the accused buying kittens through internet ads.

At the time of his second arrest in November, police found two dead rabbits in Nichols’ kitchen and 15 dead kittens in a trash bag outside.

Nichols told officers he had the animals because he could not live without them and admitted to violating his bail conditions, Hewitt-Michta said in her decision.

While he portrayed himself as acting impulsively, his statement to police revealed a deliberate gathering of animals from advertisements on the internet with the claimed intention of helping them, according to the decision.

“He told police he was bored and wanted to get back into fostering animals. Initially, he told the interviewer that he experienced “episodes” when overwhelmed wherein he was not himself. He reported leaving kittens in a garbage can to die,” the decision said.

When pressed about the injuries to the animals, Nichols conceded hitting kittens over the head with hard objects such as the leg of a stool, according to the ruling.

Nichols lied to authorities about some of the animal deaths, including two rabbits. He claimed one was killed in a “freak accident” and the other died the following day of a broken heart.

“The two rabbits were necropsied. Suffice it to say, neither died of a broken heart,” the decision said. “The Crown filed detailed necropsy reports specifying a spectrum of gruesome injuries, confirming the considerable force required to cause those injuries, and establishing the moderate to severe pain the animals would have suffered.”

Nichols claimed some of the deaths were due to dog attacks, but autopsies of the kittens revealed there were skull fractures and severe brain trauma. Some experienced cervical neck dislocation and on most of the bodies, there was evidence of acute blunt trauma, including hemorrhages and contusions across their bodies, the decision said.

The judge’s decision detailed Nichols’ claims he blacked out during the offences and was using drugs at the time. Nichols, who was 27 at the time of the offences, told a pre-sentence report officer that the second round of killings occurred in the context of mental-health difficulties, a relationship breakdown, drug use and suicidal ideation.

Both the pre-sentence report and psychological assessment report point to likely diagnoses of multiple mental illnesses, but his moral culpability remains significant,” the judge wrote.

“Mr. Nichols was in a position of trust vis a vis all the animals he killed. He did not kill a stray that wandered onto his property but rather animals he intentionally obtained from others with the undertaking that he would care for them,” Hewitt-Michta wrote. “While Mr. Nichols pled guilty and demonstrated remorse, he has been dishonest and minimized the seriousness of the offences.”

The court imposed a lifetime ban on Nichols from owning or living in the same place as an animal.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca