Animal cruelty charges are pending after police responded to a gunshot Tuesday.

At around 5:33 a.m., officers were at a Goff Avenue location when they heard a single gunshot. As they approached Clark Street, they could smell the odor of gunpowder, according to the incident report.

Drawing closer to a residence, police noted the gunpowder smell became stronger. Off to the side of a porch at the residence, officers found a single 9 millimeter shell casing.

A trail of blood found near the shell casing led to a neighbor’s house, where police found a black Labrador retriever that had suffered a gunshot wound to the neck.

The animal was not moving when police found it. Its condition was unknown late Tuesday. A call to the residence went unanswered.

Charges in the case are pending against a 24-year-old Clark Street man, investigators said.

In other reports:

* An early Christmas present for a Sifly Street man could be a gallon-sized bottle of calamine lotion after he was found completely naked in a swamp south of Orangeburg Sunday.

At around 5 a.m., a concerned resident called saying a naked man was running around a swampy area off Cannon Bridge Road.

Deputies arrived and verified the caller’s story was true -- they spotted the subject just as he had been described -- naked and in the swamp.

The man refused to exit the swamp when deputies called to him. Instead, he sprinted through the swamp and an adjacent wooded area, the report stated.

When the nude burst out onto Riverside Drive, he was apprehended and charged with indecent exposure. He was then taken to the hospital to be treated for several injuries believed to have been suffered as he ran through the woods.

At the hospital, however, the man became irate and began using profanity. He was charged with public disorderly as well as indecent exposure.

In other cases:

* An Orangeburg woman’s car was recovered Sunday after it was involved in a single-car wreck near Neeses.

The woman told deputies that her 1999 Mazda was last seen at her property on Sunday.

Deputies were advised by state troopers that the vehicle had been overturned on Ninety-Six Road.

A man and a woman were seen fleeing the wreck on foot.

The vehicle was towed.

* Parishioners of a Five Chop Road church contacted law enforcement before their service Sunday after finding their air-conditioning unit had been damaged.

The Perfecting Zion Church members said that at around 9 a.m., they discovered someone had torn apart their Heil unit, causing about $800 in damage.

* A Bamberg man said he was missing part of his vehicle after a trip to church Sunday.

The man said he attended an Ott Street church in Branchville Sunday and left without a catalytic converter on his 1997 Nissan truck. Someone had cut it off the Nissan while he worshipped, the incident report stated.

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