So what ARE police doing to catch the cat killer?
Once known as the Croydon Cat Killer, he has mutilated more than 400 all over England, and started butchering other pets, too – deliberately leaving corpses where the loving owners will find them . . .
SAMANTHA BrowN was at the dentist’s with her two young daughters on the morning she received a call from the police to inform her that the family’s beloved cat Harley had been killed.
‘They said there had been an incident and I tried to hold it together because my daughters Tabitha, 11, and Coco, eight, were sitting right next to me,’ says Samantha, a 44-year- old teaching assistant from Bromley, Kent. ‘But Tabitha could see that something was wrong. She kept saying: “what’s happened to Harley?” and she began to cry.
‘I broke down, too. The police were giving me details, but I was in shock and couldn’t take anything in. But it was obvious that Harley had been murdered.’ According to an animal rescue organisation, Harley is thought to be one of nearly 500 animals who have been slain and mutilated by a sick serial killer over the past two-and-a-half years.
originally dubbed the ‘Croydon Cat Killer’ or ‘M25 Cat Killer’ because the grisly spree originated in the South-East, incidents now seem to be nationwide. Mutilated bodies have been found as far north as Sheffield and Manchester. others have been found in Portsmouth, Dover and Luton.
The modus operandi involves decapitating, de- tailing and removing the paws of the unfortunate creature before placing its body in a prominent place.
Foxes have been killed in a similar manner while rabbits and guinea pigs have been abducted from owners’ gardens and slaughtered.
Those investigating the cases believe the culprit — now dubbed the UK Animal Killer — has butchered up to three animals a day. They believe no pet is safe.
For one couple, solving the killings is an all-consuming mission.
Boudicca rising, 47, and her partner Tony Jenkins, 52, first met in 2013, bonding over a shared love of rescue cats.
In 2014, the couple launched their rescue organisation SNArL — South Norwood Animal rescue and Liberty — to rehabilitate and rehome poorly treated animals.
within a year, SNArL was on high alert. Tony had spotted a notice from a local vet which said that four cats had been mutilated in Croydon.
Boudicca and Tony posted a warning on their Facebook page and were soon inundated with calls from grieving owners.
In December 2015, police took notice after Boudicca and Tony attended a question-and-answer session at which then Commissioner of Scotland Yard Sir Bernard HoganHowe was present.
An official investigation — operation Takahe — was launched. ‘Harley is a classic case of the Animal Killer victims,’ says Boudicca.
‘He — and we are only assuming it is a he — is targeting beautiful pets. In all my years working with animals I’ve never seen anything like this. The devastation caused is immeasurable.’
HArLEY,
aged five, had been owned by Samantha and husband David, 52, a tech company founder, since he was a kitten. She recalls the night he went missing just over three weeks ago.
‘It was wednesday around 11pm and Harley was miaowing to go out,’ she says. ‘ He doesn’t normally do that, but he’d done it the night before so I wonder with hindsight if the killer had been luring him with treats in the run-up to the attack.
‘Harley’s routine was always to go out, do his toilet and return and curl up on my bed.
‘Next morning, my husband had to leave for work early, so I assumed he’d fed Harley and perhaps let him out while I took my daughters to the dentist. That’s when we got the call to say his body had been found outside our house.
‘when I got home, a neighbour said that she had seen Harley’s body on the pavement. The vet confirmed he’d been bludgeoned to death and his tail had been chopped off with a sharp instrument.
‘He hadn’t been decapitated, but the other injuries were consistent with the other killings.
‘The fact he places the pets where the owners will see it so he can inflict the most pain makes me so angry,’ she says. ‘Thankfully — and I’m happy we got at least one small win against him — a car had parked in front of the body early that morning so none of us saw it.
‘I hate to think what that would have done to my girls. Already Tabitha sleeps with a picture of Harley next to her bed and has a playlist of happy songs to remind her of him.’
Samantha is about to install CCTV in her home and has set up a Twitter account @hunt U down 4 harley in an attempt to track down the killer.
‘I believe this person is targeting these animals,’ she says. ‘There’s no way he’s randomly seizing an animal. I know nothing is going to bring Harley back, but I want this monster caught. He’s a psychopath. And will he stop getting pleasure mutilating cats and move onto people?’
THAT’S a concern shared by Amy Hanna, a 26-year-old retail worker from Northampton, whose pet rabbit Penfold was killed last August.
‘we’d heard about some animal killing incidents in the area on a Facebook page so decided to get an indoor hutch for Penfold,’ says Amy, who lives with husband John, 29 and their three-year-old daughter, Kira.
‘The day before we were going to buy it, I went out in the morning to clean Penfold’s hutch and found his body lying in the garden. His head and legs had been cut clean off.
‘I thought it was a toy, but as I realised it was Penfold, I was horrified. I knew it wasn’t a fox. The hatch door had been opened and there was not a spot of blood anywhere. The injuries were too clean.
‘In my mind, killing a pet rabbit is only a small step away from doing something to a person and my daughter used to run around in that garden. we’re thinking of moving.’ Not all the killings are the same. ‘There is usually decapitation and mutilation,’ says Boudicca. ‘we have 26 points that match up to this killer’s modus operandi but we’ve only released six to the public to avoid anyone copying the crimes.
‘No blood is found near the body which suggests that he bludgeons them to death and waits for at least half an hour for the blood to congeal before he mutilates them.
‘one of his favourite tricks is to shock — placing the bodies or heads where children will see them — near schools and playgrounds.
‘we say over 400 animals have been linked, but we suspect that’s a conservative estimate.’
while the murders appeared random at first, SNArL has noticed a pattern. ‘ He seems to kill in the South-East first then moves further north, killing animals on his way there and back.
‘we have no description and so far he’s avoided all CCTV, which suggests he’s checked out the locations
beforehand. Although we ask people to report incidents to the police, so many different forces are involved and many owners feel let down that the cases are closed so quickly.’
In a statement, the Metropolitan police says: ‘police have been working closely with the RSpcA and local animal charity SNARl from the outset.
‘The team are investigating cases across london, and also in liaison with police constabularies outside the capital to establish if any similar incidents have been reported.
‘To date, there have been no arrests and no specific suspects identified, though officers continue to pursue a number of leads. There is no evidence that there is a risk to human life.’ Hayley Gray, a 31year- old council worker from Addlestone, Surrey, was aware of the killings and kept her pet cat Squiggles in at night. But sadly, last october, she became yet another victim.
‘We let her out at midday and although we were concerned that she didn’t come back for her evening meal, we weren’t too worried until the following morning,’ says Hayley.
‘No one had seen her. Ten days later I got a call from SNARl to say her body had been found in the car park of a nearby office block. She’d had her tail and back leg cut off.
The car park has ccTV, but the killer wasn’t captured on it so he must have climbed over the wall to dump the body. She was the loveliest cat, so friendly and I just can’t believe that someone could do this.’
Another owner Anita Dowding, 43, from penge, South- east london, woke up on New Year’s Day to discover her cat Smokey had been murdered.
‘We’d had a party the night before and around 10am a neighbour shouted over to us that he thought Smokey had been run over.
‘My son and husband came back in and told me not to go out. I can’t believe someone would want to kill an animal like this. We were heartbroken. I’d had Smokey for nine years since he was a kitten.’
Sarah Baines, a 40- year- old married mother- of- three from crawley, says her ten-year-old son suffered from nightmares after the discovery of a stranger’s dismembered kitten only a few feet from their front door.
‘unfortunately, by that point, my youngest son Bayley had also seen it from his bedroom window,’ she says. ‘He went to school in tears that morning. He’s normally a chatterbox, but he was subdued and had nightmares for a couple of nights.’
An RSpcA spokesperson says: ‘We would like to reassure cat owners that deliberate attacks on pets are, thankfully, extremely rare. previous scientific studies have found that, in most cases where a pet is discovered dead with upsetting injuries which look like knife wounds, they have been caused after death by wildlife.’
Boudicca Rising is not convinced, however. ‘It’s been proven beyond all doubt via post-mortems that these killings are human-related,’ she says.
‘We are asking people to keep their cats, rabbits and guinea pigs indoors at night. The key to solving this lies with the public, we need people to be aware and, if they see or hear something suspicious, to report it.
‘It just takes that one phone call to end this.’
IF ANYONE has any information about the UK Animal Killer, call the police on 101 or SNARL on 07961 030 064 or 07957 830 490.