After three years of deaths, Britain’s ‘cat killer’ case solved
Officials say foxes likely responsible for mutilated remains
LONDON — The fiend was dubbed the “Croydon Cat Killer.”
For three years, Britain’s Metropolitan Police force had been trying to figure out how hundreds of dead cats, some of them mutilated, were showing up alongside roads around the capital city, the fringes of remnant woodlands and the gardens of suburban towns.
The Telegraph newspaper on Monday called it “one of the most puzzling murder mysteries of the past decade as fearful experts described a serial pet killer who was likely to move on to humans next.”
On Monday, finally, the police announced there they had taken another look at past autopsies and had a glimpse at the scientific research on predation.
“Following a thorough examination of the available evidence, officers working alongside experts have concluded that hundreds of reported cat mutilations in Croydon and elsewhere were not carried out by a human and are likely to be the result of predation or scavenging by wildlife on cats killed in vehicle collisions,” the police admitted.
In other words, vehicles struck the free-roaming pets, causing blunt force trauma, and then foxes retrieved the road kill, gnawed off the tails, opened up the bellies and chewed off the heads.
“In three instances where CCTV was obtained, footage showed foxes carrying bodies or body-parts of cats,” police said.
A forensic veterinarian on the task force concluded “the mutilations had been caused by predation and/or scavenging, and highlighted that fox DNA had been found around the wound sites on all five bodies.”
Another vet who earlier examined the dead pets and imagined the bellies to be sliced open took another look and found puncture marks.
A spokesperson for the South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) organization, whose “real-life pet detectives” drew global media attention to the cat killings, told the Telegraph they were “surprised” the police closed the case — and insisted they had gathered evidence to “indicate human involvement.”