Is the death and mutilation of a more than a dozen domestic cats in Thurston County, Washington, USA, the work of a depraved psychopath or the actions of a predator animal behaving entirely naturally?
There are a lot of questions and unknowns in this story from Thurston County. To a certain extent it mirrors the story of the Croydon Cat killer in the UK.
In 2018 in Thurston County The Olympian online newspaper reported the discovery of 13 domestic cats killed and mutilated over a period time. One was found cut in half on 28th Avenue Southeast near Allen Road Southeast in Olympia. The residents were convinced that a crazed monster was at large who enjoyed killing and mutilating animals. The video makes this clear.
The report of the killings went viral and put the local residents on edge. More recently, a report dated 21 August 2019 in the same newspaper stated that post-mortem examinations on two cats found this year on Aug 7 and 14 concluded that they were killed by an animal. Initially, their deaths were classified as suspicious.
It appears that the authorities remain unsure as to the cause of death of all of the cats. But in deciding that two cats were killed by animals or an animal they have opened the door to making the same conclusion with respect to the remaining cats.
In the UK, the police decided that over 250 cats killed and mutilated were the actions of animals such as foxes. Some said that the police came to this conclusion to get rid of a criminal investigation which they could not solve and which was causing embarrassment to them. In my opinion foxes rarely kill adult cats so I can’t believe in the fox theory.
The confusion over who killed these cats ultimately comes from the difficulties in finding evidence which in turn originates in the fact that cats wander around outside often at night where and when there is no one except the cat and the predator, human or animal, who kills him. The only evidence comes from studying the corpse of the cat and that is proving problematic.
It is slight strange that pathologists cannot be clear on the difference between a cut by an animal’s teeth and one made by a knife in the hand of a person.
Cat guardians who advocate full-time indoor cats will cite this story as another example of the need to keep cats indoors.
It may be fair to say that people are sometimes too eager to blame serial killing humans who enjoy expressing their depravity on animals while forgetting that there are animal predators, especially in America, such as the coyote (often) and raccoon (relatively rarely) who kill cats. The coyote kills outside cats, usually feral cats, in relatively large numbers.
I guess that if you look at the problem statistically you have to go with the animal predator theory. This is because psychopathic humans who enjoy killing cats are rare while cat killing coyotes are not.
