Mare-killing puzzle

Press, 12 July 1983, Page 10

Mare-killing puzzle

NZPA Dallas Six mares have been sexually mutilated and killed — all on brightly moonlit nights — near Dallas, Texas, and some horseowners are planning to patrol their farms on the next full moon.

Others have hired private detectives and are stationing armed guards at their stables.

The police say that they are considering a theory that members of a cult are attacking the horses.

The mares were killed in three incidents over the last four months in southern Dallas County. A seventh horse was fatally injured. "It’s panicking everybody down here,” said Arlene Brown, whose pregnant mare was killed and a filly was fatally wounded on June 21 at the farm she and her husband own. “Everyone’s so upset about it, because there’s no reason why.”

Several horse-owners planned to patrol their farms during the coining full moon on July 24, said a woman who lives alone on a farm south of Dallas and

asked not to be identified. “It’s getting to be a full moon in a week and a half, and we’re afraid they’re going to do it again,” she said. Horse experts believe that there is more than one attacker, but do not know how they are getting close to the horses and mutilating them without being hurt. “There’s somebody involved that has to know something about horses,” said Tom McLaughlin, a veterinarian who performed autopsies on several of the mares. “I just don’t know’ how they’re doing it.” In the first case, a Belgian mare kept in a stable was mutilated internally with a section of plastic pipe. A dog belonging to the mare’s owner, Robert Robertson, was beaten to death.

Four quarterhorse mares were killed similarly at the same stable on April 30. Mr Robertson’s partner, Jack Chestnut, said that they had moved the rest of their mares to a safer posture. In the latest incident someone used straw to lure a mare and filly into Mr

Browns’ barn. Mr Brown said that he was unable to move the injured filly and had spent several nights guarding it with a shot-gun until it had to be put to death.

“Coming up and finding your mare dead in the barn and all torn up inside is pretty painful. I’ve never heard of anything like this. There’s just no purpose in it,” he said. A police detective said that he had consulted several psychologists and experts in the occult about the case.

“Usually in these cult things, you’ve got feathers around or candles or candle drippings. But there’s nothing. No one can seem to come up with anything that would substantiate it being a cult. However, I could be wrong.”

The Friends of Animals of Dallas County has raised a SUSIOOO ($1500) reward for information leading to the killers’ arrest. And a nation-wide humane organisation, the Fund for Animals, is offering a SUS 1000 reward and has a detective on the case.