Threats made over pet cat; cat-napper tracked down
It was shaping up as a normal Tuesday in a small coastal community in Dunedin when ‘‘all hell broke loose’’.
‘‘I will catch and euthenise [sic] the cats that are killing my goldfish and the birds on my property,’’ a November 1 post on the Roseneath community Facebook page warned. ‘‘If this is your cat you have until 8am tomorrow (Wed) to claim it,’’ said the post by ‘‘Doc Turpin’’, which featured a picture of a cat in a cage. But amateur detectives tracked down the person allegedly behind the threat to a property in Roseneath. The post led to a flurry of comments including whether the caged cat post from the Turpin account was linked to an anonymous handwritten letter drop to some households regarding another cat.
That letter, obtained by Stuff, asked ‘‘Is this your cat?’’, and featured a coloured picture of a brown cat. ‘‘Dear Cat Owner, I have spent 20+ years planting natives and bringing birdlife back to our neighbourhood. ‘‘I do not appreciate this bird killer on my land – Your Pet!’’ The note asked: ‘‘Can I come and s... in your vege garden?’’
‘‘DON’T BE AN IRRESPONSIBLE CAT OWNER!!’’. It was signed ‘Pro Birds’.
The picture of the cat bore a resemblance to a missing cat whose owners had made a flyer, asking ‘‘Have you seen Cocoa?’’
Cocoa went missing from the Roseneath area on October 31 and has yet to be found.
The cat pictured in the cage also went missing on October 31, its owners, who declined to be named, told Stuff.
They posted about their missing cat, Motley, on a Port Chalmers Facebook page when ‘‘all hell broke loose’’ on November 1.
The woman received a screenshot of the Roseneath Facebook post featuring Motley in a cage. That was when she was told the address where Motley might be held captive. One of the amateur sleuths who helped track down the person behind the post was Harry Richardson, who also has a cat missing. It took him 30 minutes of online sleuthing to unmask the person behind the post and that information was given to ‘‘prominent members’’ of his community. Richardson told Stuff there was ‘‘no life’’ in the Facebook profile of Doc Turpin, apart from a long post about algae in his 5000 litre fish tank. ‘‘And in this neighbourhood there is only one place I could think of that could have an Olympic swimming pool for a fish tank.’’ Within 30 minutes, Motley’s owners went to the address. They said the man there maintained he was never going to kill the cat and was only holding on to it to ‘‘flush out’’ the owner of another cat, which had been targeting his fish.
The couple later took the cat to the vet. She was dehydrated and her front claws were missing, ‘‘because she was trying to get out of the cage’’. A complaint was made to police, who visited the property this week and were told by a relative the man was overseas.