Trapped by several hunting dogs in a garage, between a washer and dryer, the 300-plus pound pig squealed in fear before a Makaha man allegedly ignored pleas from the pet's owner and stabbed it to death, witnesses told police.

Porky was no feral pig. Rather he was a beloved pet and celebrity of sorts, who had appeared in the popular television series "Lost," a local airline commercial, and had several other TV commercial offers pending.

The pig was killed last month by a man trespassing on private property, a 130-acre lychee farm on Kapanoe Street at the top of Mililani Mauka, police said.

"This is really sick, it makes no sense ... there's no sport in it," Detective Randall Borges said of the killing.

The Makaha man, who had been identified through ongoing investigation, surrendered to police at the Wahiawa station Wednesday and was arrested for felony livestock theft. He is expected to be charged today.

The man has a criminal record; he was convicted in 2000 for kidnapping his then-girlfriend in the parking lot of the Wai'anae police station. He served one year in prison and five years' probation.

The 5-year-old pig's owner is the resident manager of the lychee farm. Borges said the manager had caught the suspect trespassing two weeks before the pig was killed and had warned him not to come back. The man and two other pig hunters returned Oct. 22 with five dogs, said Borges.

According to witnesses, Porky was sleeping in a bed of grass when five dogs chased him into the garage.

"The people were right there in his face, telling him to get the dogs out, that he was trespassing and not to kill the pig because he was a pet," Borges said. "They heard the pig squealing and then there was silence."

The man allegedly went into the garage, killed the pig and dragged it out and left it in front of its owner, police said.

The incident is drawing the attention of national pet groups.

The Humane Society of the United States yesterday asked City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle to fully investigate and prosecute the man.

In a letter to Carlisle, the organization expressed its concern "because of the apparent callous, gratuitously cruel nature of the killing, magnified by the fact that the men were apparently unaffected by the screams of witnesses begging them to stop the massacre."

Dale Bartlett, the society's national deputy manager of animal cruelty issues, said, "The seeming malice with which the killing was carried out, heedless of its effects on Porky's family members, is particularly troublesome and speaks to a disturbing propensity toward violence that we fear may carry over to affect people as well, given the well-proven connection between cruelty to animals and violence against people."

Bartlett urged Carlisle to seek significant jail time and psychological counseling for the pig hunter.

The prosecutor's office yesterday also received a letter from Farm Sanctuary, a farm animal protection organization which operates animal shelters in upstate New York and northern California, that supports prosecution against the man.

According to police, Porky had between $2,000 and $5,000 worth of commercial jobs pending.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.