Daughter of Dover man accused of beating dog to death with bat testifies at hearing

Nevaeh Grove-Aguilera was getting ready to take a shower at her father’s Dover home the evening of July 10 when she heard her father yelling at the dogs.

He had two dogs – pit bulls named Star and Bali – and her father, she testified Friday at a preliminary hearing for her father on charges of beating Bali to death, was “yelling angrily” at them to get off his bed.

A few moments later, she said, she heard noises that sounded like he was hitting one of the dogs with a metal baseball bat he had. She testified she heard the bat hit the wall and heard one of the dogs yelp, “kind of like her calling for help.”

Not long after, she said, she saw her father, 38-year-old Aston Aguilera, carrying Bali toward the basement, holding the 50-pound 5-year-old female pit bull by her collar above his shoulder. She testified that he told her, “She’s not dead yet, but she will be.”

She then heard a noise that sounded like her father throwing the dog down the basement stairs. Then, Grove-Aguilera, 19, said, “I heard the bat continuing to hit the dog.” She heard Bali barking and yelping.

After she got out of the shower and got dressed, she said, she walked to the top of the stairs leading to the finished basement and saw her father striking Bali with the metal bat 10 to 15 times, mostly to her head.

Bali was lying on the blue carpet, motionless. She said Bali still appeared to be breathing. When her father saw her, she said, he backed away from Bali, who was bleeding from her ears, nose and mouth.

Aguilera looked at her, she testified, and said, “Do you think I wanted to do this?”

She didn’t say anything.

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Later, she said, she asked her father whether they should take Bali to a shelter “where she could be taken care of.” Her father objected, she said, noting that people at the shelter would ask for an explanation for the dog's grievous injuries.

The evening began normally enough. She and her father drove home from work – she works with him; he got her a job at his place of employment – stopping at a Royal Farms to get gas and allow her father to pick up a six-pack of Blue Moon beer. He drank some beer while grilling chicken and Aguilera-Grove made noodles.

She said Aguilera finished the six-pack – previously, according to the criminal complaint, she told police he had had four beers – and went to his bedroom while she showered.

And that’s when she said she heard her father beating Bali to dea

th with the baseball bat. After Bali was dead, she said, she took photos of her body with her phone. She said she also recorded a video that depicted the sounds of Bali being beaten with the bat.

He told her that Bali had lunged at him, something Grove-Aguilera testified was out of character for Bali. In the four years her father had the pit bull, she said she never saw her act aggressively, growl or bare her teeth at her father. She said she did not see any bites or scratches on her father’s body, even though he did show her his arms where he said the dog had wounded him. She said she didn’t see any wounds.

After Bali died – she placed the time at 10:13 p.m. - she said her father asked her to get the carpet cleaner and fill it. She did and she returned upstairs while her father ran the shampooer over the blood stains in the carpet. She testified that her father asked to refill the machine once while he was cleaning the carpet. She testified that she didn’t help.

Then, she testified, her father asked her to fetch contractor’s bags, heavy trash bags, and asked her to hold one open while he placed Bali’s body in it.

She testified that he asked her whether she wanted to bury Bali in the backyard of his Oakland Road home or dispose of her body elsewhere. She wanted to bury Bali in the yard, but Aguilera objected, she testified, saying he didn’t “want her to come back and haunt me.”

He kept asking her whether she was angry with him, she said.

Aguilera put Bali into the back of his truck and asked his daughter to drive to East Berlin Road to find a place to dispose of the carcass, she testified. She said he wanted her to drive because he had been drinking and had alcohol on his breath.

When they reached a desolate part of the road, she said, he asked her to pull over. He went to the back of the truck and “threw (Bali) into a ditch.”

When they returned home, she said, her father “kind of acted like nothing had happened.”

The next day, she said, she and her father drove to work, “like nothing happened.” She called a woman she lived with in Maryland – she wasn’t living full-time at her father’s house, only staying there “when he asked me to” – and eventually went to the Northern York County Regional Police station, where she reported what happened to Bali.

She led Officer Fischer Stoltzfus to the area where her father had tossed Bali into a ditch. They found Bali’s body along East Berlin Road near North Baker Road.

Stoltzfus then prepared a criminal complaint, charging Aguilera with aggravated cruelty to animals creating serious bodily injury or death, a third-degree felony.

During the hearing, Aguilera’s lawyer, William Whitenack, questioned Grove-Aguilera about her relationship with her father, asking whether she was upset with her father because he didn’t buy her a car. Whitenack also asked whether she was angry that her father may have been upset with her over some issues that arose at their workplace. She said those issues had been addressed.

“Were you upset?” the lawyer asked her.

“No, not really,” she replied.

At the hearing's end, Magisterial District Judge David Eshbach held Aguilera for trial.

Aguilera remains free on $75,000 bail.

Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Daughter of Dover man accused of beating dog to death with bat testifies at hearing