Jenelle Evans Denies Making Up Story About David Eason Shooting Her Dog For Publicity

Jenelle Evans is denying a claim by police that she fabricated a story about her husband David Eason shooting her dog.

In May, the North Carolina native had told the press that he “killed” her French bulldog dog Nugget because the pet “snapped” at their 2-year-old daughter, Ensley. She reported the alleged shooting to police, who opened a joint investigation with animal control services. Meanwhile, the incident led to her being fired from Teen Mom 2 and to her and David temporarily losing custody of Ensley, her son Kaiser and his older daughter Maryssa. On Thursday, the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office said they had closed their investigation following Jenelle’s request and that she had provided inconsistent accounts and also told them she filed the animal cruelty report “for the publicity and because she did not know where her dog was.”

“I did not make up any story,” Jenelle said on Instagram Live on Friday, following a backlash. “The first time I was contacted by police was the chief. When the chief of Columbus County contacted me, he left me a voicemail. I had two voicemails, one of them from Detective Jacobs, the second one from Detective Green…and he literally told me to call him back, so I called him back, and he said, ‘Look, Ms. Evans, we have rape cases that we have to deal with and we have way other serious crimes that we have to deal with. I need to know if this is a publicity stunt. If this is a publicity stunt, I’ll close the case. I’ll let you go about your business, and I understand why you’re doing it. Let me know so that I can close this investigation or keep it going.'”

“They wanted me to call and explain to them what was going on, and I told them, I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know what happened to my dog. When the incident happened, I was inside the house with the kids. I don’t know if I heard a gunshot or not, and that’s it,'” Jenelle continued. “So where they have me saying I did this for publicity, no! They asked me at the beginning if I did this for publicity. I said no, and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to continue our investigation.’ So they continued. They came to my house. They did a whole house search. The kids weren’t there.”

Jenelle said that a week later, their family’s lawyer called the police and asked, ‘Is this case going to be continued, opened, are you pressing charges? What are you planning on doing?'”

They said, ‘We’re closing the case,'” she said. “He said, ‘OK, based off what?’ He said, ‘We’re just closing it.’ So he didn’t tell our lawyer that we were doing it for publicity.”

Jenelle said, “I think the cop has grudges against us. We had to send a letter from our lawyer telling them to leave us alone and stop calling us, stop harassing us…I told the truth. I told them what happened from what I saw. I mean, I don’t know what to tell you. I wasn’t outside when anything happened. I don’t know. You have to ask David.”

The Columbus County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on Jenelle’s latest remarks.

“After knowing my dog wasn’t around anymore, I took the initiative and stayed away from David for about a week,” Jenelle said on Instagram Live. “During the day, I’d pick up the kids from school, take them home, you know, just normal routine, get them ready for bed, I’d go to bed. We wouldn’t talk. That happened for about a week. Then we started talking, and I said, ‘Listen, something has to happen.’ He agreed, so he went and took anger management classes. He took six of them and he completed them. We took co-parenting classes. That was really awesome.”

When asked if she was happy since leaving Teen Mom 2, Jenelle said, “Yeah, in a way where I’m getting a break, and it’s been a good break where I can have a private family life for once, and this dog incident was never supposed to go public. It was a private family issue that happened that we are still trying get over, and just everyone keeps bringing it up, and you know, and even just being associated with the show, it still blows up in the news no matter what I do, so I don’t know.”

“I’m happier since leaving, but the drama still ends up online,” she said. “So I’m happier in my private life, but you know, the publicity part is hard to deal with.”

—Reporting by Jessica Finn