Cat Mutes Timeline

bobnotes Notes for Friends Cat Mutes Timeline

“... before locking it again.” Who would have the key except owners and caretakers? Would they, in multiple cases it appears, be at all likely to do this? But who then?

Mutilated male cat found first week of August 2003, in Bothell, Washington. Veterinarian Cherie Good, D.V.M., placed cat remains to show width of cat’s middle section bloodlessly excised.

Source.

Cat Mutes

A little history and something of a timeline.

Usually, only one half of the cat is found, not uncommonly in or near the owner’s front yard. Always blood-free, some internal organs removed. Vets think the lack of blood indicates the cats were first removed to a surgery of some sort and later one half returned to near the owner.

The most current cases are from August 2017 as this is web page is being prepared in that same time frame.

In 1978 in St. Catharines near Toronto, Canada, authorities were frustrated by more than 100 missing cats and dogs and many others found in their owners' yards skinned, decapitated, disemboweled, cut in half or paws removed, without blood at the site.

Source.

On August 13, 1989, The New York Times reported about 67 cats found mutilated in Tustin, California - a suburb of Los Angeles near Santa Ana. The NYT wrote:

Some of them were cut in half with what some say is almost surgical precision, others disemboweled or skinned. One resident said, 'There is never any blood at the scene, the animals are often dismembered with surgical precision and paws and other body parts are often left on the ground in strikingly similar arrangements. No one ever seems to hear anything, nor do dogs bark during the killing.' It was believed the cats are captured, taken elsewhere, their blood drained and organs removed, then replaced on their owners' lawns.

Source.

In 1989, cat mutes were news to the New York Times.

Source.

“This half-cat was shipped in March 1993 by Vic Warren, Supervisor of Animal Control for the Vancouver City Pound, to John Altshuler, M. D., hematologist and pathologist in Denver, Colorado. This was one of seven cases reported to Vic Warren between January and March 1993. Dr. Altshuler confirmed that the entire excision had been made with high heat, cauterizing and preventing blood flow. Photograph © 1993 by John Altshuler, M. D.” Source.

The map plots reports of cat mutilations only in the Northwest from 1992 to 2011, about twenty years.

Source as before.

“Similar waves of cat, and half cat, mutilations - and sometimes mutilated rabbits, marmets, squirrels, dogs, raccoons and rats - have been reported throughout the world since at least the 1970s. The following are some of the locations where small animal mutilations have occurred - some with cyclic incidents every few years: London, England; Toronto and Vancouver, Canada; San Antonio, Ft. Worth, Austin, Plano, and Corpus Christi, Texas; Seattle, Spokane, Bothel and Bellingham, Washington; Falls Church, Virginia; Pensacola, Navarre, Lauderhill, Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay, Florida; Lee, New York; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Tucson, Arizona; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Tustin, San Jose and San Diego, California; Denver and Aurora, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah>” ibid.

The following list is compiled from the same LMH source. I have usually omitted the many details to be found in her reports.

August 15, 1995 Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

March and June 1999 - Cats in Tucson, Arizona.

August 13, 1999 Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

August 25, 1999 London, England.

September 15, 1999 San Jose, California - Since May 1999, in San Jose, California, two dozen cats, a raccoon and a rat have been found disemboweled, cut in half and oddly skinned. The San Jose Mercury newspaper headlined “Cat killer menaces southern San Jose.” The article began, “A killer is stalking the cats of southern San Jose, mutilating 21 felines since May 31 - primarily pets taken from owners' yards at night and returned dead, often dismembered and skinned.”

October 3, 1999 London, England and San Jose, California - More bloodless half-cats reported in London. At the same time in San Jose, California, on October 3, 1999, bloodlessly decapitated and mutilated cats were found.

October 10, 1999 Fort Worth, Texas.

November 5, 1999 Toronto, Canada. ,,,, Hunt has photographs of the current Ontario mutilated cats, many of them precisely and bloodlessly cut in half. One is an orange and white cat, collar still attached. There is a wound above the cat's eye and some bruising around the neck where odd punctures in the throat have been found in some of the mutilated animals. The abdomen was severed in half with a “razor-straight cut.” Only the front half remained with all its organs intact. Debbie Hunt told reporters, “It's like a band saw or a very sharp knife is doing this. Wild animals aren't. (Otherwise) the liver, the lungs and the organs would be strewn about.” Further, the half cats are left near schoolyards or on well-lit street corners as if purposely laid out to be found. Ms. Hunt told me, “We're talking to some pathologists about the nature of the cuts and have been sworn to secrecy on some things.”

2000[-2006] Spokane, Washington - Between 2000 and August 2006, the Spokane, Washington, region experienced six summers in a row in which cats were found cut in half without blood or signs of struggle.

March 2001 Austin, Texas,

August 12, 2001 Navarre, Florida.

October 20, 2001 Ocean Beach, California.

May 16-23, 2002 Bellingham, Washington.

November 16, 2002 Aurora, Colorado.

2003 - Salt Lake City, Utah. Over the past several months in Salt Lake City, Utah, a dozen cats have also been found cut up the same bloodless way. In Denver, Colorado, more than forty small animals have been mutilated over the past couple of years and the Denver Dumb Friends League is offering a $12,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone found responsible. In Bothell, Washington, a non-profit group known as Pasado Safe Haven now has a $5,000 reward there.

May 27, 2003. Salt Lake City, Utah.

June to July 1, 2003. Denver and Aurora, Colorado.

August - September 12, 2003. Bothell, Washington and Salt Lake City, Utah.

July 14, 2005. Seattle and Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island, Washington.

August 13, 2005. Seattle, Washington.

August 16, 2005. San Jose, California - On August 16, 2005, I [LMH] received the following email from Thomas G. Holford, a San Jose, California resident with photographs he took of a cat cut in half laying in the front yard of a south San Jose, California home.

Linda:

Today, August 16, 2005, about 4:00 PM, I was walking in a residential neighborhood in south San Jose, California, when I noticed the remains of an orange cat, in two pieces, on the front lawn of a home. I was on my way to a business meeting, but stopped long enough to snap some pictures. Attached are digital photos of the scene.

Cat cut in half, lying in front yard of south San Jose, California, home,

discovered on August 16, 2005. Images provided to Earthfiles by Thomas G. Holford.

On my way to the meeting, I stopped at an animal clinic and reported the incident to the staff, and they indicated that they would call animal control. Ten minutes later, I phoned the clinic and suggested that they might call the police and have the police secure the area. The clinic reported that they had called animal control, and that animal control was on their way to the site.

In my quick observation of the carcass, I did not observe any blood, which suggested that the carcass may have been dropped there after the cat had been killed. Also, the fur of the cat seems to have been rather mussed up and “ungroomed.” ****

October 17, 2005 San Antonio, Texas.

June 28, 2006 Destin, Florida.

August 23, 2006 Spokane, Washington.

November 2006 to April 2, 2007 Corpus Christi, Texas.

May 24, 2009 Rutland, British Columbia, Canada.

June 2, 2009 Cross Roads, Denton County, Texas.

June 12, 2009 Greater Miami, Florida, Region.

October 12, 2010 Vancouver, B. C., Canada.

July 15 to September 15, 2011 Maple Ridge, B. C., Canada.

March 24, 2012 Vancouver, B. C., Canada.

May 1, 2012 Rio Rancho, New Mexico, suburb of Albuquerque.

April 14, 2012 Orange Park, Florida: Four kittens found dead, cut in half and dismembered.

March 24, 2012 Lake of the Pines near Auburn, California, northeast of Sacramento.

Here is some detail about a rash of cases in San Jose, CA. The source is Earthfiles and the interviewer is Linda Moulton Howe. This will be ihe case in all of my notes here unless indicated otherwise.

LMH has many more records of cat mutilations that bring us up to the time I am compliling this timeline (mid-August 2017, but before I bring those in, I would like to offer the item below from the earlier period just to give the reader a chance to get into a little more detail of what happens in these cases.