Suburban scapegoat

The Croydon Cat Killer, like Wilde’s Bunbury, has been quite exploded. For three years, cat owners and worried residents in this part of south London had feared some maniac was dispatching and dismembering domestic cats. A police detective had raised the level of alarm by speculating that the criminal would “escalate the attacks to humans, specifically vulnerable women and girls”. But now an official investigation has put the blame on foxes that scavenge for cats killed by cars. This causes distress to families who own cats, but a notable response to the investigation’s conclusions is that some still refuse to believe it. They prefer to believe in an unseen criminal – a Springheeled Jack or Jack the Ripper of the feline world – rather than confront a natural consequence of mixing traffic, cats and foxes in the suburbs.