Animals mutilated, beheaded, hanging from trees
Juniata Park, PA (US)Incident Date: Monday, Aug 4, 2008
County: Philadelphia
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
A pedestrian walking through a city park made a grisly discovery yesterday morning in the Juniata Park section of Philadelphia: three beheaded chickens, one dead kitten, another cat close to death, and the skeletal remains of a dog.
All were scattered throughout a small area of Tacony Creek Park, just off a concrete service road leading into the park near Ramona Avenue and I Street.
Investigators were puzzled and shocked as they scoured the site.
"This is a little different from anything I've ever seen," said George Bengal, director of law enforcement for the Pennsylvania SPCA, which is handling the probe.
Two of the chickens were found hanging by their feet from a tree branch. Their heads had been carefully wrapped inside bandanas and stuffed back into their bodies, he said.
A cat near death, surrounded by black feathers, lay beneath two of the dead chickens. Elsewhere, investigators found another headless chicken and the carcass of a kitten Bengal said probably had been hit by a car.
By the edge of the creek, they found the bones of a medium-sized dog. The dog, which Bengal thought might have been a pit bull, had been dead for about a month.
Bengal could not say if the chickens may have been used for a religious ritual. He planned to go door-to-door in the adjoining neighborhood to ask residents if they had seen any suspicious activity.
Case UpdatesAnimal rescue groups said a cat is the lone survivor of an act of animal cruelty discovered Monday in the Juniata section of the city. Veterinarians said the cat was in a coma and barely alive.
"We don't know how this condition happened," said Dr. Ravi Muraka of the local SPCA. "It could be rat poison. We don't know."
Investigators for the Pennsylvania SPCA said they found the cat in Tacony Creek Park while responding to a tip about alleged animal cruelty.
Investigators said they also found a dead cat, a badly decomposed dog with its head missing and three chickens hanging upside down from a tree.
"They were beheaded with bandanas wrapped around the heads and then the bandanas and heads were stuffed inside the birds," said George Bengal of the SPCA.
SPCA officials said they have known people to sacrifice chickens for religious purposes but nothing like this.
Veterinarians are performing blood tests on the surviving cat hoping to diagnose the illness and save its life. | Source: NBC 10 - Aug 6, 2008
Update posted on Aug 6, 2008 - 9:31AM |
References« PA State Animal Cruelty Map
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