A Blooming Prairie man has been charged with hanging and burning a cat in Austin.

Paul Hjelmen, 34, is charged with animal torture after three roommates found a house cat burned in a fire pit in their yard.

According to court documents, Austin police responded on Jan. 14 to a report of animal cruelty in the 1100 block of Fourth Avenue Northwest. Three residents said one of their cats had been killed Jan. 12. They had removed the cat’s remains from the fire pit and put it in a garbage bag in the garage.

The roommates kicked out Hjelmen, who allegedly told police three different stories about what had happened, and initially had not admitted to killing the animal. None of the roommates witnessed Hjelmen kill the cat.

Hjelmen told officers he was “really, really drunk” from drinking scotch, brandy and beer that day, and had found the cat under a table with a ribbon-like string around its neck. He claimed he tightened the string around the dead cat’s neck and took it out to be “cremated” in the fire pit. He later said it was “possible” he may have harmed the cat, whose name was Boris.

He had called the cat’s owner to report its death, and was crying “fake like,” the owner claimed.

At one point, records show, he said to a roommate, “Yeah, I’m burning Boris in the backyard. It’s all my fault.”

Hjelmen is scheduled to appear in Mower County District Court on March 12.