This is a story which reminds us that typically cat poisoners hide in plain sight, in the community where they live, and can even be ‘pillars of the community’. This is an allegation at this stage and therefore nothing is proved in a criminal court of law; a point that needs to be made at the outset. Although the matter will never get to a criminal court!
The story (as reported by the Mail Online) concerns one such “pillar of the community” namely Peter Imbert, 65, who is a former long-time Mayor of a New York village called Amityville. A village associated with horror thanks to movies and it appears that this former mayor and head of a local metal manufacturer RCI Industries, has allegedly been creating a little bit of horror himself in the world of cats.
He used to employ a maintenance man whose name is Ralph Guarino, 39, who did a lot of menial (he says) tasks for his boss who frightened him.
One such task was to buy antifreeze and cat food for him so, he alleges, Imbert could poison stray cats in the area.
Imbert is a dog lover and he appears to be a right-wing Republican who likes weapons which he allegedly stores it is home. He’s been accused of stocking illegal weaponry. And Guarino also accuses Imbert of getting stoned at his home with consumable THC edibles.
Mr Imbert allegedly said that he is answerable to no one but God and it appears that he acted like God towards Guarino and stray cats in deciding to, allegedly, kill them with that classic poison antifreeze.
Cats like to lick antifreeze. They like the taste of it but it is a very efficient cat killer by destroying their kidneys.
For me, the moral of the story is that around America and indeed any other country there will be cat poisoners. Their criminal behaviour will be entirely unknown to their neighbours and other citizens in the community. They might be, as I’ve said, pillars of the community.
They hide in plain sight meaning there criminal activities are invisible. And that points to another lesson if you like which is that it is very easy to poison stray cats with antifreeze and get away with it all the time because all you’re doing is putting down a bit of cat food at night when no one is around laced with antifreeze. Nothing could be easier. You can do it for years on end.
And your neighbour’s cat goes missing as cats sometimes do. This hides the crime because the owner often isn’t able to find their cat and therefore a necropsy cannot be performed. The cat just disappears which helps perpetuate the criminality.
This is a major reason why many more cat owners are deciding to keep their cats indoors full-time. The trouble with this change in cat caregiving is that they do not ensure that the interior of their home is sufficiently ‘catified’ in Jackson Galaxy’s language meaning their environment is insufficiently enriched sometimes leading to boredom and obesity due to therapy eating.
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