Bumble disaster: Man who met teacher on dating app must pay Arlington Heights woman $160K over dogs’ torture, killings

Sarah Manos with a photo of her dogs Kirby (left) and Daisy. She has just won a court judgment after suing a man she met on Bumble who she says tortured and killed the dogs. | Tyler LaRiviere / Sun-Times

A south suburban man who was accused in a lawsuit of torturing and killing his former girlfriend’s dogs Daisy and Kirby has been ordered to pay more than $160,000 to the Arlington Heights high school teacher, whom he met on Bumble.

Cook County Judge Thomas Donnelly has ruled that Mathew Berry must pay Sarah Manos $100,000, finding that Berry violated the Illinois Human Care for Animals Act.

He also ordered Berry to pay Manos $4,662 for veterinary expenses, $1,450 for the money she spent to buy her dogs, $12,769 for mental health services she received as a result of the ordeal, $5,149 in attorney’s fees and $38,308 for inflicting emotional distress.

“I do feel like this brings me peace and absolutely a sense of justice,” Manos says.

Berry, 29, of Midlothian, couldn’t be reached after the ruling.

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times last year, he denied he was abusive to Manos or harmed her dogs.

Mathew Berry with his dog Zip.

Manos, 28, who teaches in Arlington Heights, says she met Berry in April 2020 through Bumble, the dating app, and that they connected over their interest in dogs.

According to Manos, Berry became verbally abusive to her and physically abused her dogs. In her lawsuit, she accused Berry, a driver for a medical transportation company, of injecting Daisy with medication on May 4, 2020, that made the dog “wobbly.” Daisy died later that day.

About a month later, her lawsuit says, Kirby died after Berry repeatedly abused him.

Both dogs were mixes of Shih Tzu and Bichon Frisé.

Manos says she plans to go after Berry for the monetary damages the judge has ordered him to pay.

“The civil suit was important to me because it was my way of holding him accountable, to say, ‘What you did is not OK, and I’m going to make sure you feel the consequences of that,’” she says. “I’ve had many women come forward as having been victims of abuse and relating to me and my story. They say that me sharing my story is inspirational and gives them strength and community as well.”

Manos says her students are aware of her story and “connect to the hardship.”

She says she was disappointed that Cook County prosecutors decided not to charge Berry with any crime. She says she recently filed a police report in Mokena, where she says Kirby was killed, and has spoken with the Will County state’s attorney’s office.

“I’m hopeful that Will County will be more receptive to this case than Cook County, as Kim Foxx is under fire for being the non-prosecuting prosecutor,” Manos says, criticizing the Cook County state’s attorney.

Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for Foxx, says prosecutors were presented with “insufficient evidence to meet our burden of proof to file felony charges.”

Simonton says prosecutors with the state’s attorney’s sexual assault/domestic violence division worked with Manos to secure a conviction against Berry for violating an order of protection, and he was sentenced to a year of probation in October 2020.

Sarah Manos’ dogs, Kirby (left) and Daisy in a shopping cart at a pet store.