‘Bored’ Indiana Teen Allegedly Killed Kittens, Posted Images
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Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images(LAKE COUNTY, Ind.) — An Indiana teenager has been charged with animal cruelty after he allegedly hunted and killed three kittens with bows and arrows and posted photographs of their mutilated bodies on Facebook, Indiana police say.
The 17-year-old boy told investigators he hunted the kittens because he was bored one day and saw several kittens in the alley behind his house in Lake County, Ind.
“He said he was bored out of his mind so he decided to hunt cats,” Det. Michelle Dvorscak of the Lake County Sheriff’s office, who investigated the case, told ABC News. “There was one walking in the alley and that’s what gave him the idea.”
The boy’s name has not been released because he is being charged as a juvenile.
The boy speared one kitten through the head and disemboweled the other one, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s office. After he finished his “hunt,” he put the photographs on his Facebook page. The photos included pictures of his pretending to eat the kittens, and were so gruesome that Facebook ultimately removed them, Dvorscak said.
“The photos are disturbing and psychotic,” Dvorscak said. “I have never encountered someone so proud of the fact that they decided to post it on their Facebook page.”
Because juvenile records are protected in Indiana, Dvorscak did not know whether the boy has a criminal history. She has turned the case over to the juvenile prosecutor’s office, which will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
The Lake County Juvenile Court declined to comment.
The sheriff’s office was alerted to the kitten hunting by the Lake County Animal Adoption and Control Center, which received an anonymous tip from someone who had seen the photographs on Facebook.
“We get calls regularly but not this extent,” said Jennelle Melendy, an adoption agent with the control center. “I’ve never seen a murder of an animal.”
The kittens were about 8 weeks old, Det. Dvorscak said.
“They were very cute, not with arrows through them,” she said, “but I’m sure they were before he killed them.”
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