ALSACAT:

Mutilated horse: the criminal lead is privileged

An investigation has been opened by the police following the discovery of a horse with serious injuries to the shoulder in Pfastatt; a wound made by a sharp object and by a human hand. A criminal or at least malevolent act is beyond doubt.

In the current context of mutilation of horses, this will certainly not calm the spirits. Thursday morning, the owner of the horse farm "Des quatre vents" in Pfastatt discovered one of his animals on the ground, unable to get up. And for good reason, the horse had, planted in one of its hooves, a cylindrical metal part. But above all, it was seriously injured in the left shoulder; a bleeding wound 16 centimeters long by six centimeters wide. The wound was clean and straight.

The veterinarian who intervened with the animal to treat it confirmed that this injury could not be linked to an accident, but to a human action. Clearly, a person used a sharp object such as a knife.

More than 150 ongoing investigations

The police officers of the GAJ, the judicial support group of the central police station, went to the scene. The animal was not in its usual enclosure but in the park, which suggests that someone opened the enclosures. Several other horses were also outside.

The specialists of the IJ, forensic identification, took all the samples necessary for the investigation; these will be entrusted either to the urban violence brigade or to the criminal brigade.

Recall that the very first cases were identified at the end of 2018 in the Puy-de-Dôme with two mutilations on equines, six months apart and in the same village. At least 153 investigations have been opened and the mystery surrounding these mutilations is still thick.

Where have there been cases of mutilated horses in France in recent months?

Since the beginning of 2020, dozens of cases of mutilation of horses have been reported in France. Find here our interactive map, which lists these acts.

For months, the horse world has been in shock, the list of reports of mutilated horses, donkeys or ponies is getting longer and psychosis is setting in. In Alsace, after a few false alerts or cases not confirmed as malicious acts, an investigation has just been opened by the police following the discovery of a seriously injured horse in Pfastatt.

Mutilated horse: the privileged criminal lead

The latest figures from the gendarmerie, transmitted on Wednesday September 23 to the newspaper Libération, report 344 reports of mutilated or lacerated horses. Among them, 55 correspond with certainty to intentional injuries committed by the hand of man. For a hundred, on the other hand, the experts concluded that the causes were accidental or due to scavengers. Verifications continue for the others.

At the beginning of September, the number of investigations opened amounted to 200, including 30 proven cases, and "for 20 to 25% of the cases, the human origin is beyond doubt", explained General Jacques Diacono, head of Oclaesp, the central gendarmerie office which coordinates the investigations. A toll-free number (0 800 738 908) was also set up on Wednesday September 9 to support horse owners.

Pfastatt (68), Thursday October 1.

An investigation has been opened by the police following the discovery of a horse with serious injuries to the shoulder in Pfastatt; a wound made by a sharp object and by a human hand. The criminal or at least malicious trail is beyond doubt. In the current context of horse mutilations, this will certainly not calm the spirits. Thursday morning, the owner of the horse farm "Des quatre vents" in Pfastatt discovered one of his animals on the ground, unable to get up. And for good reason, the horse had, planted in one of its hooves, a cylindrical metal part. But above all, it was seriously injured in the left shoulder; a bleeding wound 16 centimeters long by six centimeters wide. The wound was clean and straight. The veterinarian who intervened with the animal to treat it confirmed that this injury could not be linked to an accident, but to human action. Clearly, a person used a sharp object such as a knife. The police officers of the Judicial Support Group of the Central Police Station went to the scene. The animal was not in its usual enclosure but in the park, which suggests that someone opened the enclosures. Several other horses were also outside.

No suspect could be arrested on the territory, apart from a man in the Haut-Rhin who was finally exonerated, as well as a crank who had been caught in Ligny-en-Barrois (55) with "the arm engaged in the vagina of a mare." Only two individuals were taken to task with an animal owner, a robot portrait had been released and the two men conversing between them seemed to have a strong accent from Eastern countries, which seems to be an interesting lead.

Small amusing detail, I noticed that one of the two men was equipped with a pruning hook, a tool that is reminiscent of the mutilation case of Opoco in Bolivia (1968) in which one of the entities threatened a shepherdess with a curved stick whose end ended in a sort of hook, a utensil that we find in the Bois des Prannes affair, an investigation by Eric Zürcher. In short, the comparison stops there.

The other common thread is the modus operandi (the right ear cut off before it is carried over to the left), here too the attempts at explanations remain very limited, being limited to esoteric and occult rites. All the options have been chosen or almost by the investigators: isolated psychopathic individuals, organized groups, satanic sect, unhealthy mimetic effect, an Internet challenge, a role-playing game (one mentioned Games Of Thrones), or even fetishists?

It has been shown that some cases are not due to human causes, what should be understood? It's very simple, animals injure themselves on potentially sharp objects if they feel in danger for some reason, the other cases are attributed to post-mortem attacks by predators such as badgers, insects, birds such as raptors (vultures) or crows.

At no time do the media dare to put forward "exogenous" theses, which we can understand, the climate is sufficiently anxiety-provoking for it to be necessary to add to it. [...]