FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Eric Phelps, eric@idausa.org, 503-664-0001

In Defense Of Animals Offers $2500 Reward to Catch Serial Cat Killer

Yonkers, N.Y. (April 25, 2014) – In Defense of Animals (IDA), an international animal protection organization, has offered a $2500 reward leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the deaths of at least 25 cats found hanging in a tree in Yonkers on Thursday, April 24.

Public Works employees discovered the gruesome scene Thursday morning and alerted police. The cats were all killed and placed into plastic shopping bags, then hung in a tree in a vacant lot in Yonkers. Necropsies on three of the cats, performed by the SPCA of Westchester, determined the cats died of blunt force trauma. It is believed all the cats were killed in this same manner, but because the acts appear to have been going on undetected for several months, many of the corpses are in such a state of decomposition that the cause of death is difficult to determine.

“The sick and twisted nature of these heinous killings and ritualistic crime scene indicates what a danger the perpetrator is to all of us,” said Eric Phelps, Emergency Response Unit Coordinator for IDA. “Someone knows who did this, and he or she will be serving the entire community by stepping forward.” Phelps added that studies have repeatedly shown, and the FBI and other law enforcement agencies agree, that a person who commits cruelty to animals very often moves on to commit acts of violence against people, especially when the cruelty to animals goes unpunished.

IDA urges anyone with information about these brutal killings to call the SPCA of Westchester’s Humane Law Enforcement division at 914-941-7797 or IDA at 415-448-0078.

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