Sprouse is charged in dog killing

This time, it’s Darrell Sprouse’s turn to face a judge.

The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office accused him Tuesday night of shooting a neighbor’s dog in the head and dumping the body along Hopeman Parkway. Sprouse, 34, of Waynesboro, is free on bond.

Over the summer, Sprouse was better known for standing by his wife, Wendy, after a Waynesboro judge upheld her 22-year prison sentence on an embezzlement conviction, the stiffest punishment anyone in town could recall for that crime. Darrell Sprouse vowed he’d spare no expense on appeals.

Now he has his own court fight.

It began after a city worker discovered on a roadside a 150-pound Rottweiler named “Bear” with a bullet wound in the head.

The animal’s owner, Richard Wayne Andrews, said Sprouse claimed he’d mistaken the animal for a literal bear. Sprouse’s father, Wayne, said his son told him the same thing.

Sprouse, Andrews said, has a history of shooting guns at odd hours and in odd places in their Calf Mountain Road neighborhood.

“He’s reckless,” Andrews said. “I want to see him lose his rights. He doesn’t deserve to have a gun. When Bear didn’t come home at all that night, I knew something bad had happened.”

Deputies searched Sprouse’s home and found eight guns, a gun scope, ammunition and bloodied fur in the bed of his green pickup truck, according to a search warrant.

Andrews told authorities Sprouse tried shooting other pets as well, hitting one neighborhood dog last year, the warrant said.

“It’s not the first time,” Andrews said Wednesday. “Rather than coming to someone, he just grabs a gun.”

Sprouse’s father said his son seemed confused about the charges.

“I talked to him last night and he said he don’t know what’s going on,” Wayne Sprouse said. “He said he thought it was a bear because it was 150 pounds and it was black.”

In November, a jury recommended a prison sentence of 22 years and six months for Wendy Sprouse for embezzling $17,733 from a local real estate company. A Waynesboro judge in July upheld the sentence. She previously had been convicted of embezzling $15,000 and $29,000 from Rockingham County businesses.

The severity of her latest sentence took aback even the prosecutor who worked the case, though he supported the punishment as just, and sparked a flurry of letters to The News Virginian.

Wendy Sprouse is serving time in the Rockingham County Jail.

Darrell Sprouse is scheduled to appear Dec. 29 before an Augusta County General District Court judge. He is charged with animal cruelty and receiving stolen goods.