By Matt Snyder
SANDY LAKE TOWNSHIP — A Sandy Lake Township man said he doesn’t remember the details of a drunken night that ended with him facing charges of trespassing and sex with a barnyard animal.
James Alan Stiver, 46, of 11 Booher Road, took an Alford plea for felony trespassing and sexual intercourse with an animal — a misdemeanor — on Monday before Common Pleas Judge Christopher J. St. John. He had charges of animal cruelty dropped.
An Alford plea works like a guilty plea in Pennsylvania for sentencing purposes but does not require the defendant to admit the details of their crime. Stiver said he doesn’t remember what happened.
“I awakened to someone shining a flash light on me and I was told to leave,” Stiver said. “I was walking down the road when I was picked up by (Sandy Lake police) Chief Oakes, and was taken back to the location.”
Stiver was awakened by the barn’s owner, a woman who had slipped a baby monitor into the barn because she thought someone might be staying there. She heard the lamb making noise at about 9 or 10 p.m. Jan. 11 and found Stiver and the animal, police said.
Stiver was covered in blood, some from his own hands, which had lacerations, and some on the front of his pants, underwear, and genitals. Police found him with his pants undone, they said.
Assistant District Attorney Keith Bell said a Greenville Veterinary Clinic expert examined the lamb and said it had been penetrated, but no blood tests were done to match the blood on the sheep and the blood on Stiver.
The lamb had to be euthanized due to its injuries.
Stiver said he came upon the barn while wandering home from a Stoneboro bar after polishing off most of a 30-pack of beer. He said he does not remember what led him to the barn. It is between his home and the bar he was drinking at, and he said he grew up in the area.
Stiver is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 11.
