A SICK prankster taunted a distraught dog owner by claiming one of her beloved stolen dogs had been found before cruelly describing how he had been brutally killed - all apparently as a ‘joke’.

Jacqui Millson’s two dogs Zala and Zeus, a husky and white German shepherd, were stolen from her home in Rockley View, Pilley, on December 22 and she has since featured in the Chronicle, national newspapers and on TV as part of a high profile campaign to find them.

She has even offered a reward of £2,000 per dog for their safe return.

On Tuesday she thought she had finally received the call she had longed for when a woman told her Zeus had been found.

“I honestly thought she’d found him, she was so believable,” said Jacqui, 53.

Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle