EL PASO, Texas -- Sgt. Dwayne Sumter is accused of keeping his dog in a crate in the garage without food or water for about a month.

After KFOX broke the story last month about the outstanding warrants for Sumter, which included animal cruelty, word quickly spread to Sumter's command in Maryland that the sergeant had to get back to El Paso to answer some questions.

Fourteen months after allegedly leaving his dog alone to die, Sumter came to El Paso on Friday to turn himself in.

"Sgt. Dwayne Sumter voluntarily reported to the El Paso Sheriff's Department to answer questions for the district attorney's office," said Maj. Joe Scrocca of the U.S. Army 20th Support Command.

His dog, Little Pit Girl, was found in February 2008. According to a complaint affidavit obtained by KFOX, the dog was left in a garage without access to food, abandoned, and confined to a kennel for an unreasonable length of time.

Animal activist Jessie Miller said Little Pit Girl had dry blood on her gums because she said the dog chewed her way out of the kennel.

"The fact that he put her in that crate to begin with and she had to chew her way out of that. We estimated that she had been there for 30 days before she actually died," Miller told KFOX on March 27 when we broke the story.

Sumter was in Iraq with the 20th Support Command when he got the call to come back to the States.

"Sgt. Sumter returned earlier this week, I can't give you the exact day, to the United States, and a member of our command escorted him down to El Paso," said Scrocca.

Sumter was also wanted on charges of violating his parole on a domestic violence assault charge against his wife. But since he hasn't been convicted on either of the two warrants, the military won't take any action yet.

"He's due to be released, where he will go back to Fort Hood, retrieve his belongings, and then he will report back to Fort Bliss," Scrocca told KFOX.

Army officials said he will be at Ft. Bliss until the charges are resolved. Sumter will have to report weekly to a probation officer in El Paso, and his next court date is expected to be in June.