Project 2025 Leader Boasted of Killing Neighbor’s Dog With Shovel, Ex-Colleagues Claim
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure behind MAGA policy manifesto Project 2025, faces disturbing accusations from former colleagues that he killed a neighbor’s dog with a shovel two decades ago.
The alleged incident, which reportedly took place in 2004, comes in the weeks after former President Donald Trump and running mate Senator JD Vance (R-OH) pushed false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Ohio.
According to multiple former colleagues at New Mexico State University, where Roberts worked as an assistant professor between 2003 and 2005, he boasted that he killed a neighbor’s pit bull because its barking disturbed his family.
Speaking to the Guardian, then-chair of the history department Kenneth Hammond, along with other witnesses, described the story as unsettling but noted that they did not press Roberts for further details at the time.
Hammond told the newspaper: “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.”
Marsha Weisiger, another professor at the university, recalled Roberts sharing the story at a dinner: “My husband and I were stunned. First of all, that he would do such a thing. And second of all, that he would tell us about it.”
She added that Roberts also mentioned considering killing the dog’s puppies.
Roberts denied the allegations in a statement to the Guardian but did describe an instance when the pitbull tried to jump the fence: “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.”
He added that the city later removed “more than ten dogs” from the neighbor’s property.
The dog in question, a pit bull named Loca, belonged to Daniel Aran, who the newspaper confirmed was Roberts’ neighbor at the time. Aran kept three dogs and confirmed that the animal went missing in 2004.
“She was my favorite,” Aran said, remembering that she was the only female he owned and adding that, despite searching for her including at the local pound, she was never found.
He did not directly accuse Roberts but expressed unease at the timing of his dog’s disappearance. He denied that the city removed any dogs from his property during that time.
