SHE COOKED THE CAT!

A Bronx teenager roasted her ex-roommate's kitten to death in a stove - then brushed off the incident as a joke when she was busted, authorities said Thursday.

"I hate cats," Cheyenne Cherry, 17, allegedly told investigators when asked about the heartless crime.

Cherry's confession came after she was arrested Wednesday by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

She and an unidentified juvenile allegedly broke into Valerie Hernandez's Tinton Ave. apartment on May 6 and trashed the place.

Then in a shocking act of animal abuse, they tossed the woman's kitten, Tiger Lily, into the stove and cranked up the temperature, ASPCA assistant director Joe Pentangelo said.

Cherry told authorities that she and her accomplice "thought we would play a joke on Valerie and mess up her apartment."

The duo bolted from the apartment with DVDs and packages of noodles, Pentangelo said.

"She didn't want to hear the cat crying and scratching at the oven door," Pentangelo said.

Firefighters found the female cat's remains smoldering in the oven after neighbors complained of smoke coming from Hernandez's apartment.

"My brother came to my house and said, 'I think food is burning,'" said Hernandez's next-door neighbor Jannetssie Genau, 24.

"Later the police came and said what it was. I was upset because I had a cat myself before."

Besides roasting the kitten, Cherry and her friend allegedly slashed Hernandez's furniture, unscrewed light bulbs and threw bleach on the walls, Pentangelo said.

"I think what was done cries out for justice," Pentangelo said. "It's a shame that this kitten had to suffer like this. For the kitten to get caught up in whatever was going on with them is a tragedy."

Pentangelo said the kitten was burned so badly a necropsy had to be performed to determine its sex.

Cherry was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals, burglary, arson, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. She was released to the custody of her mother.

The unidentified juvenile involved in the incident has not been arrested.