Dog Owner Who Stabbed Pet During 9/11 Breakdown Cleared Of Causing Suffering

9/11 Trauma: Christiane Ewing

A former theatre and film production designer, who stabbed her miniature schnauzer dog ‘Pepe’, has been cleared of inflicting suffering because she was in the grip of suicidal post-9/11 trauma.

Christiane Ewing, 52, plunged a kitchen knife into her beloved five-year old dog’s abdomen and slashed her wrists after seeing a news items about the bin Laden family on the tv.

She told Wimbledon Magistrates Court yesterday she suffered PTSD, depression and anxiety after being evacuated from an American Airlines plane moments before it was due to take off from New York’s JFK Airport on September 11, 2001.

The court was shown images of the bloody scene, with a large pool of blood in the living room, with a large black-handled kitchen knife next to it, plus bloodstains in the hallway, bannister and outside the bathroom.

Fortunately she phoned her ex-husband minutes after the stabbing and he rushed bleeding ‘Pepe’ to a vet for successful emergency surgery.

Ewing, of Florence Road, Wimbledon, who has a First Class degree in theatre, was found not guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to the dog at her home on August 1, last year.

She told the trial she had been drinking white wine from 3am and saw a news items about the death of Hamza bin Laden, son of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Pepe Recovering After Stabbing

“I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and was immediately sick. It felt like my head was full of black mist and Pepe and I must escape this world,” she said.

“The two of us would be up in the sky together, away from this terrorism horror. It was a moment of complete despair.

“I was going to end my life and Pepe’s life and we would be safe, off this awful planet.

“I stabbed him and cut him.”

The vet found seven different knife injuries on the dog and told the court he would have died without surgery to his spleen.

There were also wounds to his colon and intestine and more superficial slashes around body and fortunately he recovered after three days.

Ewing phoned her ex-husband Adam Nice in tears that morning, telling him: “Pepe’s dead and I’m next. Get round here and get Pepe to the vet.”

He said in a statement: “I could hear Pepe whimpering at the top of the stairs and he had a big cut behind his ear and his belly was hanging out.

“It isn’t safe for him to live with Christiane anymore and I will look after him when he is better.”

Ewing, who was backed up by a psychiatrist who gave evidence, told the trial: “I couldn’t trust anyone to look after him. He is by my side all the time.

“The whole of nine eleven came at me like a tsunami.”

Reflecting on the stabbing she added: “Horrendous is too small a word. A day does not go by that I am not in tears and praying to God for his welfare.

“I am disgusted and don’t know what words I can say. My heart is absolutely broken, shredded.

"It was not an act of cruelty, but an act of love and we would be together, forever.”