A report of a meth lab at a Chocowinity residence sent Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies out to investigate, but what they found instead led to a felony charge of animal abuse.

David Lee Krol, 37, of Gray Road in Chocowinity, was charged with one count of felony killing an animal by starvation and arrested on Aug. 19. The original call came to the sheriff’s office on Aug. 3 as a report of a possible methamphetamine lab and suspicious people at a residence on Shelter Lane, according to a press release from Lt. Wesley Waters, spokesman for the sheriff’s office. However, when deputies and narcotics investigators responded, they did not find a meth lab in their search of the residence but did find a deceased dog. They began an investigation into the circumstances of the dog’s death. The dog was sent off for necropsy at the state lab where it was determined that the cause of death was starvation.

Waters said it was a case of abandonment.

“(Krol) had lived there and had moved and had abandoned the dog at the house,” Waters said.

The approximately 9-year-old black lab died in the house, but deputies found it in the yard where it had been moved prior to their arrival, Waters said.

Waters said there were no other animals in the house at the time. Officials were not certain how long the dog had been dead before investigators found it, he said.

Krol was held at the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $2,000 bond.