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Madera residents find 54 dead cats dumped in yards
By Charles McCarthy / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Wednesday, March 9, 2005, 12:54 PM)
MADERA — Fifty-four dead cats have been dumped in the yards of four northeast Madera homes during the past month, leaving investigators puzzled over who dumped the bodies — many of them dog-bitten — and some residents concerned that the killing isn't finished.
Madera police Cmdr. Steve Frazier could not say why only four homes not far from the downtown area were targeted by the bizarre action.
"It's apparent that these [cats] have been chewed by a dog," Frazier said. "But clearly, they haven't been placed by a dog. So you can pretty much rule out just a dog doing this on his own."
Madera police want the public's help to find the person or people who have left as many as seven dead cats at a time in the yards. Some cats had been dead for several days. Others were freshly killed.
Anyone with information is asked to call (559) 674-5611 and ask for Auxiliary Services Supervisor Heidi Foley.
"We want to get the person that's doing this," Foley said.
Two of the dead cats were identified as pets missing from homes in the area. Some homes still had pet cats living there unharmed. The most recent four dead cats were found March 2.
"We would certainly like to make an arrest on this, because you're looking at 54 felonies," Frazier said. "We don't think that this is a dog working alone. It's probably a dog on the end of a leash."
Frazier didn't think the cats were victims of someone training fighting dogs to kill. In that situation, he said, there's nothing left of the "bait." Residents at two of the four homes are outraged that their yards have become dumping grounds for the dead cats, stunned that a person or people could be so cruel to defenseless animals and worried that the onslaught will continue.
Amanda De La Cruz, 37, said she and her husband found five dead cats — three in the back yard, two in the front — on the February day they moved into their house.
They had the bodies removed, but their troubles had just begun. Almost every morning in February, De La Cruz said, she awoke to find at least one and sometimes as many as five dead cats in her front yard.
Most were found near a tree not far from a side fence. She said one of the bodies was the little gray and white cat that belonged to her neighbor. One morning, she found two kittens and the mother, all dead.
De La Cruz said she and her husband bought a surveillance camera and trained it at night on their front yard. The expense appeared to pay off one night when the camera caught a man standing on the sidewalk, shooting a cat.
Her husband chased the man for several blocks. The shooter got away, De La Cruz said, "but he dropped the cat."
The cat was dead.
Many of the cats clearly "were beautiful" animals when alive, De La Cruz said. "They were pets."
The seemingly never-ending morning trek to her front yard, only to be confronted with another array of death, has worn on her spirit, De La Cruz said.
For the last four to five days of February, she said, "I couldn't even come out" of the house.
The dumping stopped for a short span in February, then resumed and continued into early March. De La Cruz said it recently stopped again, but she fears the killing isn't over.
"They're crazy," she said of the people behind the killings. "Once they get that high, they're going to go on to something bigger."
De La Cruz has a pet dog, Leela. She said her neighbors are nice and she knows of no one who is angry with her or her husband.
She hopes the police catch the killer or killers.
"Because if we catch them, we're going to beat the crap out of them," De La Cruz said. "They're not getting out of our front yard."
Jon Kleinert lives on Central Avenue, about a half-dozen houses from De La Cruz. He had seven pet cats, but only six now. He doesn't know what happened to the one missing. It hasn't been among the dead cats that were tossed into the yard in February, Kleinert said.
"This is somebody with a sick mind," he says.
Kleinert isn't sure how many dead cats he has found — "at least 15." He usually found three or four at a time; one night he discovered two about 11 p.m. and awoke to find even more bodies.
Kleinert said he and his brother initially thought the dumping might be "somebody being vindictive to us," perhaps sparked by resentment toward the pets. But, he added, his cats have been spayed or neutered and are mellow animals that stay close to home.
Kleinert sometimes was up late when the incidents were at their peak, looking out his windows and searching through the dark for the killer. He saw no one suspicious, only the occasional person pushing a shopping cart with recyclables.
"I can't think of any enemies," Kleinert said. "I'm fairly sure it's a random thing."
Franke Perales, 40, lives across the street from Kleinert. Perales said he hasn't had any dead cats dumped in his yard but is aware of Kleinert's troubles.
Perales said he thinks someone may be trapping the cats, then killing them.
California State University, Fresno, criminology professor Eric Hickey learned Tuesday about the cat killings in Madera. He took note of the quantity and that they were dumped in just four yards.
"This is not a typical animal-killing situation," Hickey said.
Hickey described a scenario in which a person or people could be trying to send a message to certain people: "someone who knows them and has specific issue with them."
Another potential motive for the killer or killers, Hickey said, is "something that they're struggling with personally."
He said people who kill cats usually are wrestling with issues such as rage and anger. Sometimes, after they feel they've expressed themselves, the incidents just stop, he said.
This level of animal cruelty, Hickey cautioned, "is not something to be trifled with."
Madera County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Erica Stuart said deputies and narcotic agents on rural raids seeking methamphetamine or other illicit drugs often find themselves dealing with snarling, menacing dogs.
"Those dogs are obviously there to protect the property," Stuart said.
Stuart could not recall any recent Madera County arrests for illegal fights using battle-trained dogs.
At the Madera County Animal Shelter, director Kirsten Gross said there were some stray dogs in the area where the cats were found. But, she added, dogs aren't likely to kill in such a pattern.
Gross said she has seen some of the dead cats. She described them as "healthy cats, a lot of them."
Laboratory tests were being done on some of the dead cats.
"It's pretty awful," Gross said. "We do encourage people to keep their cats inside."
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