We mustn’t forget Sage the cat who was ‘tortured and murdered’ on March 9, 2017. The Facebook page which documented the efforts of the people who searched for the criminal who did this is now a memorial. That’s what is left of this story. A memory.
If you’d like to touch base on the story and go over it, you can click on this link to see a series of posts.
Reward
The reward of $62,000 is still active although dormant. It is with the Humane Society of Utah. It will be available for years we are told. I can’t help but feel sadness in the belief that it will never be claimed.
Police
I also feel a degree of anger at the local police who, it seems to me based on the reports, carried out a pretty cursory investigation. They declared the case closed on June 10, 2017, three months after opening it.
DNA Test
What is mystifying to me, and I see no reason for this, is that that the police refused to allow a DNA test on the collar worn by Sage at the time of his death. What’s that about? Is that a callous obstruction of attempts to get justice? There is no explanation for it on the FB memorial page.
At the time, the private investigator employed to help (as the police had stopped) was very excited about the possibility of DNA testing the collar. They had permission to do it and the funds but the police would not release the collar.
Happened In Home?
There were a few other unexplained cat cruelty cases in the district. It was thought that there was a local person torturing cats. That sort of stuff happens. However, like a number of others, I always believed that the criminal who did this lived in the house where Sage was found by the cat door (cat flap). Sage’s injuries were so severe that it was very likely that he was placed there with the intention to give the impression that Sage had come in through the cat door by himself. I always felt that the placement of Sage when he was found was a ruse to throw people off the scent that he had been harmed in the home by people living in the home or a visitor.
I was criticised for making this wild speculation and as I recall the police interviewed these people but there was no follow up. It went cold. I just feel that an opportunity to catch the person was lost needlessly.
Private Investigator
The private investigator, Jensen Investigations, was funded by crowd funding. There was a lot of hope when he came on board. The fundraising campaign to pay him has not been closed. So in some respects the case remains live in a private sense. It is the authorities who gave up on it a long while ago. People don’t want to give up on it. I don’t know if Jensen has closed his file. It seems likely that it is not closed but dormant.
Limitations
I see that there is a statute of limitations for prosecuting crimimal defendents in the USA. It is five years. So, in five years after March 17, 2017 the Sage the Cat case will truly be a memorial.
However, at present, the Facebook, Sage memorial page is more than a memory. The organisers still ask for assistance on leads and donations on the July 5, 2018 post. But the title to the page has changed to “Remembering Sage the Cat”.
It is a very sad page. There isn’t closure. It is an open wound among the cat loving community of Facebook.
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