Cat Mutilation News Reports

I was sent an e-mail containing links to news reports about Cat Mutilations. Here are the reports:

Mutilated Cats Found In St. Petersburg Neighborhood

From July 8, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Detectives are investigating reports of mutilated cats found by residents of an enclave on 49th Street North, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said.

The most recent incident was Friday when Anthony Bartolo found his 10-year-old cat, Fluffy, in the front yard, according to a sheriff's office incident report.

The feline's throat had been cut, Bartolo said.

"It's really devastating," he said. "If you can take a knife to a cat and cut its throat, you're a sick person."

Bartolo's neighbor, Lois Fuller, said five of her cats have gone missing - and one has shown up mutilated - since March.

In June, Fuller, 58, said she found her cat with a straight cut along its ribcage and its organs pulled out.

The reports prompted the sheriff's office Tuesday to assign a detective to the case, sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Tampa Bay is also investigating, SPCA spokeswoman Marissa Segundo said.

Bartolo, 47, said it is unlikely another animal attacked his cat because the wound was "a straight cut, like a razor."

Fuller said she too thinks it was a person who mutilated her cat.

"We're thinking along the line of a satanic cult," she said. "That's what it is."

Fuller and her neighbors now keep watch after dark, she said. Some residents stay up until 2 a.m., and others wake up at 4 a.m. and stroll the streets looking for anything suspicious, she said.

"We've all got our eyes open right now," Fuller said.

Bartolo said he's offering a $500 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

Anyone with information can call the SPCA of Tampa Bay at (727) 586-3591.



Cat deaths are considered cruelty cases

From August 20, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG — The head of a cat was found in front of a newspaper box this spring, its separated paws seemingly placed next to it.

In three more incidents reported this summer, cats were found eviscerated, victims of mysterious attacks.

• A tan Siamese Hemingway was found cut in half on June 24.

• A black cat was dismembered in the front yard of a Pinellas Point home in July.

• A white, tan and black cat was "cleanly severed" behind the shoulders on Aug. 10.

Mother Nature at work?

Some think otherwise.

"We figured it was obviously animal cruelty,'' said firefighter Albert Vildostegui, who rushed from the Lake Maggiore fire station June 24 to find a dead cat in the grassy median of Lake Maggiore Boulevard S just east of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

It was "a pretty clean cut right in the middle of the body." There was little blood.

Suspicion of foul play is common when people find the badly damaged bodies of animals, said Greg Andrews, the operational manager for Pinellas County Animal Services.

In July, Pinellas County deputies investigated a case of several apparently mutilated cats in a neighborhood near 49th Street N. They decided that those deaths were the work of hungry animals.

But to some, the St. Petersburg killings appear different. The injuries seem more methodical.

On July 11 police found what appeared to be half a black cat in the front yard of a home in the 6700 block of Pinellas Point Drive S. There was no blood.

On Aug. 10, someone found a cat's head and shoulders near Lake Maggiore Boulevard and Fourth Street S. The hind quarters were not found.

"The body did not appear to have been attacked by other animals as neither the fur or remaining organs were pulled or torn," according to a police report.

"Maliciously cut with an unknown device," the report said.

The same report mentions perhaps the most disturbing incident yet: apparently severed paws and a head placed against a newspaper vending box, also near Maggiore Boulevard and Fourth Street S.

Police say they don't know much about the possibility of ritual cat killings. So far, they are investigating the incidents as a pattern of animal cruelty calls.

"We have no leads or clues in these reports," police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.

Reward Offered in Destin, Florida Animal Cruelty Case

From June 2006

The Case:
According to The Panhandle Animal Welfare Society and Northwest Florida Daily News, on the morning of May 26, "Spot", a 16-year-old calico cat, was found deceased by his owner on the front lawn of his home on Holly Street. Spot's body was mutilated and a necropsy revealed Spot had been skinned with a knife. Since investigators did not find blood on the scene they believe that Spot was killed elsewhere and returned to the home.


Cats Mutilated in Austin, Texas

DALLAS (August 14, 2001) -The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for mutilating and killing at least 10 cats, but possibly more, in the Austin, Texas area from March through July. Neighbors in the Anderson Mill Estates community, where some of the cats have been abducted, have pooled about $4,000 for the reward fund as well.

The cats apparently all suffered similar trauma, having been found cut in half or dismembered in pieces. At least one of the cats was missing organs. In at least five of the cases, one part of the cat's body had been returned to the owner's property soon after the killing. In all of the cases, the cats had been let outdoors for a relatively short period of time before they turned up dead. A veterinarian who examined one of the cat corpses said he believes the killing had been done "deliberately and traumatically, most probably with a moderately sharp knife or perhaps a serrated knife."


Investigators seek clues to cat mutilations
CNN - Jun 26, 2003SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- If the person who has killed and mutilated 11 cats in the city's Avenues neighborhood is trying to send a message, ...



Cat Mutilations Spread Fear of Cults in Suburb
New York Times - Aug 13, 1989
By ROBERT REINHOLD, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES. LEAD:
The reports of horrible new nocturnal mutilations come almost weekly, the latest last weekend,


States Baffled By Cat Mutilations Colorado, Utah Investigators...
CBS News - Jun 20, 2003(AP) Authorities investigating a string of cat mutilations in the Denver area are talking with Salt Lake City police to determine whether there is any ...



Police in two states probe cat mutilations; death toll hits 42
Denver Post - NewsBank - Jun 29, 2003Two more mutilated cats were found in Aurora on Saturday, the latest in a series of similar mutilations that have left as many as 42 cats in the metro area ...

Police investigate cat mutilations At least 8 have been killed, left...
Dallas Morning News - NewsBank - Aug 26, 1998Police are investigating a spate of pet mutilations in a Far North Dallas neighborhood, where as many as eight cats have been found decapitated or ...


Cat Mutilations A Mystery
KWTX - Oct 25, 2007(October 25, 2007)--Another mutilated cat was found in San Antonio, this one cut with a "scalpel-like" instrument. It is the 11th incident in three weeks in ...

Animal Shelters Team Up To Stop Cat Mutilations
woai.com - Oct 19, 2007Local animal shelters are banning together to stop the troubling cat mutilations going on citywide. So far, six cats have been found killed. ...

Another Cat Found Mutilated in Texas, Bringing Total to 13 Since April
DigitalJournal.com - Aug 14, 2008Is it a serial cat killer or just some weirdo hurting the animals as a means to gain attention? The reason isn't yet known but another mutilated feline has ...


more to come...