Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation and the man behind Project 2025, is alleged to have bragged to university colleagues about two decades ago about killing a dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family.
Roberts was an unknown history professor at New Mexico State University from 2003-2005. The dog killing allegedly took place in 2004.
“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was chair of the university’s history department at the time.
Two others, Marsha Weisiger, a professor, and her spouse, recall hearing the account directly from Roberts over dinner at his home. Weisiger recalled Roberts saying that the neighbor in question also had puppies and that he had considered killing them, too. Weisiger’s husband, who asked not to be named, recalled Roberts saying he had complained about the dog to the police, who were not responsive, and that the dog sometimes got into his yard.
Other professors recall hearing the account of the story from those who were told directly by Roberts about it.
Roberts denies the report.
“This is a patently untrue and baseless story backed by zero evidence. In 2004, a neighbor’s chained pit bull attempted to jump a fence into my backyard as I was gardening with my young daughter. Thankfully, the owner arrived in time to restrain the animal before it could get loose and attack us.” — Kevin Roberts
Roberts claimed that the city later arrived and removed “more than ten dogs” from his neighbor’s property, citing animal abuse.
Roberts also identified the neighbor as a native of Las Cruces named Daniel Aran who had been sentenced to 78 months in prison in 2017 for cocaine trafficking
The Guardian could not independently identify whether Roberts killed the dog, but they did track down Daniel Aran.
Aran has been released from prison and is now the owner of a small construction company. He is lean and muscular, with a chiseled face and hardened stare.
“When I was younger, I was wild. But I gave respect to get respect. Now I’m more about work and family,” he said. “And I’ve always been a dog lover, an animal lover, since I was a little kid. I’ve always had dogs.”
Aran said he bred and sold small pit bulls as a way to provide for his family.
When asked if he had a dog disappear around 2004, he said: “Yes, definitely, my dog, Loca, my little female”. She had been his favorite, he said. “I had one female, and that was her. She was a little, little thing like this,” he said, holding up his hands in an affectionate gesture. “She was a tiny, cute little thing.”
“She went missing, and we never could find her,” he said.
“I’m not here to make up stories or to say he did it,” he said. “But it was right around 2004 when all that happened, that Loca was missing,” he said. “I wish I could say, yeah, I know this fool did that. But I can’t tell you that. But what I can tell you is that my dog went missing, and we never found her. She wasn’t at the dog catchers.”
Aran also dismissed Roberts’ claim that dogs had been removed from his home.
