On June 23, 2026, Thomas Martel was processed into the Illinois Department of Corrections to begin a fifty-four month sentence for torturing and killing kittens in his Wicker Park apartment, and he was released before the day was over. Court records show he received credit for the 1,079 days he spent on electronic home monitoring while awaiting trial, which, combined with standard reductions for good behavior, left effectively nothing of the sentence to serve. He is now back in the neighborhood on six months of Mandatory Supervised Release.
The case began on June 18, 2023, when Martel's then-girlfriend, who had grown concerned about the deaths and disappearances of the cats he kept buying, went through his phone and found a Snapchat video of one of the kittens captioned "Right before I murdered her." According to prosecutors, she recorded a second video from his phone showing the same kitten being decapitated and later gave the recording to police, and she told investigators he had drowned multiple kittens in his bathtub over May and June of that year. She went to authorities after he showed her a cat he had microwaved and told her he had been killing felines since he was a child.
Police recovered feline remains from a plastic bag in the pantry of his apartment. The kittens were tabbies he bought repeatedly online, and prosecutors said he gave each one the same name, Shelly, in an apparent effort to conceal from his family that the previous one was gone. Martel turned himself in on July 11, 2023, posted a $75,000 bail, and spent the next three years at home on an electronic monitor while the case moved through Cook County court.
He was initially charged with five counts of animal torture and five counts of aggravated cruelty to animals. On June 22, 2026, he entered a guilty plea to one count of each, and a judge sentenced him to fifty-four months on each count, to be served concurrently, with credit for the pretrial monitoring. He was transferred to the Department of Corrections the following day and released the same day. The conditions of his release bar him from owning or having contact with animals, place him on the Cook County animal abuser list, and require a psychiatric evaluation. The supervision runs through December.
Wicker Park has responded by papering itself. Flyers carrying Martel's photo and QR codes linking to news coverage of the case have gone up on utility poles and in neighborhood groups across the area, warning residents that a convicted cat killer is back among them and urging owners to keep their pets close. One flyer reads, "Guilty cat killer released from custody, keep your pets safe!"
The release has also produced an organized response. A new advocacy group called the Shelly's Law Coalition, named for the kittens, is preparing its public launch, with the Garrido Stray Rescue Foundation as a founding member and the Chicago area charity SAYv Animal Organisation leading the campaign. The coalition wants Illinois law changed so that defendants convicted of felony animal torture can no longer count pretrial electronic monitoring toward a prison sentence, and it is pushing for sentencing that recognizes each animal victim separately, along with a statewide abuser registry. SAYv's executive director, Jackie Groberski, has said investigators still do not know how Martel obtained all of the kittens he killed, and has urged owners to be cautious with online listings offering free cats and to have their animals spayed and neutered.
The coalition launches publicly on August 8, 2026, at 11 a.m. at Wescott Park in Northbrook, where organizers will begin circulating a petition through the upcoming Shelly's Law website. The announcement is below.
Martel served one day of a fifty-four month sentence, and the arithmetic that made this possible is written into the same law the coalition now wants changed. His supervised release runs through December, the rally is three weeks out, and updates will follow as both develop.