Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 29, 2003
By Jason Felch, Special to The Denver Post

Two 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 dead since July 2002.

A woman walking her dog found the first cat on a sidewalk near Smoky Hill Road and South Chambers Road about 7 a.m. Several hours later, an anonymous tip led police to another cat carcass in a field near South Peoria Street and East Cornell Avenue.

Aurora police spokeswoman Kathleen Walsh said the new cases raise the total number of mutilations in Aurora to 18. Preliminary numbers show seven more instances of cat mutilations in Denver, nine in Parker, four in Arapahoe County, two in Centennial, one in Lafayette and one in Jefferson County.

Walsh emphasized that the number of mutilations in each district may change as authorities continue to investigate.

Authorities are treating each case as a suspicious death until investigators at the Denver Dumb Friends League can perform necropsies on the animals to determine the exact causes of death.

While many of the mutilations occurred during the summer and fall of 2002, cat carcasses have been found every week since the beginning of June.

Kim Hughes found Bugsy lying still in the wet grass when he went to get the newspaper at 5:45 a.m. recently. He stooped down to gently shake the 15-year-old cat and only then saw the animal's lung in the grass a foot away.

He turned and walked into his Aurora house to tell his wife, Christy, the news. "Bugsy has been killed. Don't come out and look. You don't want to see it," he told her.

Six minutes later, Hughes went back outside to collect Bugsy and found a grisly new scene. The animal's small intestines and stomach had been arranged in "a ridiculous connect-the-dots" pattern, Hughes said. The scene was completely bloodless. Hughes looked down the block and saw no one in either direction.

Investigators told the family they believe Bugsy's killer may have "posed" the cat in front of the house and waited to see the family's reaction.

"That's as disturbing as the mutilation," said Christy Hughes. "I think evil is word for it. Not sick. Evil."

Utah investigators are studying a string of at least 14 recent cat mutilations in a Salt Lake City neighborhood that they say are similar to the Denver-area cases. Utah authorities are comparing notes with metro-area police and weighing a possible connection.

"We're going to really take a look at the connections," said Peggy Call, a crime analyst with the Salt Lake City police who has seen information from the Denver investigation.

Call said Utah authorities also are looking at similar cat mutilations that have taken place in other U.S. cities and Canada in recent years. In California, Texas, Florida, Oregon, Arizona and other states, there have been serial cat mutilations in which the animals have been dismembered or disemboweled. In many of these cases, the remains of the bodies are left bloodless in front of or near the owner's home.

The task force of Aurora and Denver authorities investigating the local cases has refused to disclose details of its investigation and would not comment on cases in other states.

"The Utah and Colorado cases are on almost exactly the same time schedule," said Temma Martin, spokeswoman for Salt Lake County Animal Services. "Somehow they seem to be linked. The timing is similar; the injuries are similar."

While stressing that no connection has yet been made, Call and Martin point to a number of striking similarities between cases that have led them to look harder at Colorado and other states.

In many of the incidents in the Denver area and around the country, the mutilated cats disappear after owners put them out for the night, and are found mutilated near the owner's house in the early-morning hours. They are often clustered in a close geographic area. Often the mutilations stop in the winter and resume in the spring or summer.

Pet owners and neighbors in the Denver area say they are frightened by what the cat mutilations might lead to next.

"It's a serial killing," said Carol DeYoung, whose 13-year-old silver tabby, Mozart, was beheaded last October and found on East Kansas Place in Aurora. "These killers, these sadists, turn into adults who are serial killers. It needs to be addressed more thoroughly than they've done it."

Aurora police, who took over the case from the Aurora Animal Care Division last week, say they are taking the case very seriously and have assigned a full-time detective to it. They also are comparing notes with authorities in Utah. Investigators from at least six law enforcement agencies and four animal care agencies are working on the Denver task force, Walsh said.Representatives of the Denver task force and Utah authorities said they have not eliminated any possibilities in the cases, and are considering a range of hypotheses.

The possible involvement of satanic cults was raised in Utah when authorities there found the numbers "666" and a pentagram 50 feet from one of the mutilated cats. But there was no evidence of a connection between the cats and the symbols, both found in a cemetery, and some experts on satanic practices say the mutilations do not match any known satanic ritual, Utah authorities said.

The most common theory among investigators is that a mentally ill person acting alone is responsible for the mutilations. In past incidents, teenagers have often been found to be responsible.

It is significant if the animals are mutilated before or after they're dead, said Frank Ascione, an expert on animal and human abuse at Utah State University. That detail will help investigators determine if the true motive is to hurt animals or their owners, Ascione said.

"Or this may be a way they leave their mark," Ascione said. "Tagging with carcasses."

Until authorities are able to solve the case, they're asking pet owners to keep their pets indoors at night. They also are asking people to report any suspicious behavior in their neighborhoods, such as someone trying to coax, lure or pick up a cat. A reward of $12,000 is being offered by the Denver Dumb Friends League for information that leads to an arrest in the case.

Meanwhile, owners of cats that have been killed are grieving for their pets, which they liken to losing a child.

"We cried for weeks," said Maryann Walker, who took care of Byron for years until he was mutilated last October near Newport Street and Niagara Way. Now she says she refuses to let the other pets she watches out of sight.

Many of the bodies of cats in the case have not been returned to their owners, and may not be until the investigation is complete.

"When they take your cat away in a plastic bag," said Christy Hughes, "you don't get to say goodbye."

Anyone with information about the mutilations should call Aurora police at 303-365-2844.

Tamera Manzanares of The Denver Post contributed to this report.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1484318,00.html