New Hampshire

Woman Accused of Cooking Roommate's Ferret in Oven

"It was just devastating, devastating," Kara Murray, the ferret's owner, said

A New Hampshire woman is devastated after an unusually heinous crime. Police said her roommate put one of her ferrets in the oven and cooked it to death.

Ivana Clifford, 26, of Manchester, faced a judge Wednesday, charged with felony animal cruelty.

The fire alarm sounded just after 2:30 a.m. Wednesday on the third floor of an apartment building at 80 Lowell St. Clifford's roommate, Kara Murray, told NBC Boston smoke was pouring from her oven.

“My boyfriend opened it and there was the dead ferret,” she said, crying.

Murray held onto her other ferret as she brought us back to the moment she and her boyfriend found their baby ferret, Angel, dead on the burning coils of their oven.

“It was just devastating, devastating. How could someone be so cruel and put an animal in your oven, cooking it alive?” Murray wondered.

“These allegations demonstrate a profound level of sadism that is of deep concern to this court,” the judge told Clifford in court Wednesday.

Clifford told police she killed the pet because Murray had stolen her clothes, but Murray said it was really because Angel had bitten Clifford a few hours earlier.

“Just nipped her, didn’t even draw blood, and that’s why she killed our ferret,” Murray said.

Murray was letting Clifford stay at her apartment because she is eight months pregnant and homeless.

“We have good hearts, we are good people,” Murray said.

But now, she can’t help but wonder what kind of twisted mind could commit such a heinous crime.

“I just don’t understand,” Murray said.

The judge decided Clifford is a danger to the public, so she was ordered held on $10,000 cash-only bail.

She will undergo a mental evaluation in jail.

It was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer.

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