Man accused of killing cat during alleged domestic dispute in Harvard

A man accused of killing a cat during an alleged domestic battery incident last year in Harvard is due back in court Friday after his cash bond was forfeited because he missed court dates and violated an order of protection, according to court records.

Storm Ince, 24, of the 500 block of 5th Avenue in Kewanee, Illinois, is charged with producing 20 to 50 marijuana plants, a Class 3 felony; manufacturing 30 to 500 grams of marijuana; aggravated animal cruelty; and domestic battery causing bodily harm and making physical contact, according to the indictment filed in the McHenry County court.

According to a criminal complaint against Ince, police arrived at a Harvard residence at 1:30 a.m. Sept. 13, 2023, in response to a call from a woman saying Ince had struck her with a closed fist on her head, legs and arms.

The woman told authorities that Ince was intoxicated and had turned violent toward her hours earlier after a Super Bowl party, the court records show. She said he kicked, punched, elbowed and pushed her repeatedly as he screamed and yelled, according to an order of protection.

She said fled in her vehicle, turned her phone on airplane mode and parked nearby hoping he would calm down, the court documents state. When she took her phone off of airplane mode, she had several missed calls and messages from Ince, according to the order of protection.

In one of the messages, Ince directed her to “come inside now” and, using an expletive, he said that she was “mean” to him, he injured Zora, a pet cat in the home, the protective order states. He then sent the woman a video of him hurting the cat, which she said in the court order “was deeply disturbing and saddening.”

She then told him she would come back inside and asked him not to hurt her or their pets when she came back. He told the woman that the cat “maybe ... would have survived” if the woman had “been nicer to me”; he also he has “mental illnesses and can’t control it,” the order of protection said.

The order states that the woman returned to find her cat bloody and struggling to breathe, and she sneaked a text to 911. The cat died from her injuries, the order said.

Ince was arrested and posted 10% of a $25,000 cash bond later that day. According to the criminal complaint, he violated bond two days later by calling the woman, who had the order of protection in place, according to the criminal complaint. He also violated his release by not appearing to court dates, according to court records.

Last month, Ince was taken into custody on an arrest warrant, and his cash bond was forfeited, public records show. He was released last week under the SAFE-T Act, which does not require cash to be posted to be released from the county jail pretrial. His release comes with conditions, including that he not contact the woman and that he appear for his court dates, according to the pretrial release petition signed by Judge Tiffany Davis.