Willie Gray “Bay” Tate

Mrs. Willie Gray “Bay” Tate, 65, of Starkville, MS died February 19, 2018 in Columbus, MS.

Visitation was held Monday, February 26, 2018 from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm @ West Memorial Funeral Home, Starkville, MS.

Funeral services will be held Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 1:00 pm at First John Missionary Baptist Church , Starkville, MS.

Interment will follow at Boyd Cemetery, Starkville, MS.

West Memorial is in charge of the arrangements.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Columbine High School shooters are among the infamous criminals who had a history of hurting animals before they went on to target humans, a tendency that's part of what's behind a movement to create public online registries of known animal abusers.

New York is among 11 states with animal abuse registry bills pending in their legislatures, following Tennessee, which started its in 2016 along with a growing number of municipalities in recent years, including New York City, and the counties that include Chicago and Tampa, Florida.

"Animal abuse is a bridge crime," said the sponsor of New York's bill, Republican state Sen. Jim Tedisco, who noted that Nikolas Cruz, accused of killing 17 people in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting on Feb. 14, reportedly also had a history of shooting small animals.

While the main goal of collecting names of convicted animal abusers is to prevent them from being able to adopt or purchase other animals, registry backers say such lists could also be a way to raise red flags about people who may commit other violent crimes ranging from domestic violence to mass shootings. But some animal welfare advocates, mostly notably the ASPCA, question how effective they can really be.

Under registry laws, people convicted of felony animal cruelty are required to submit information to the registry and pay a maintenance fee. Failing to do so brings fines and jail time. Shelters and pet dealers in a county with a registry are required to check it and risk stiff fines for providing an animal to anyone listed. It's not difficult, since most registries have only a handful of names and mug shots of cruelty crimes ranging from dog fighting to beating or starving a pet to death.

A high-profile animal cruelty case is often the impetus for passing a registry law. In Nassau County on New York's Long Island, it was the case of Miss Harper, a fawncolored 7-month-old pit bull left earless and badly infected after the couple who bred her paid a friend to perform surgery he wasn't licensed to do.

The couple had previously been charged with cruelty for putting bleach on another puppy. Since their convictions predated the registry, they're free to buy and breed more dogs. Another loophole is the current scattershot nature of such registries. While neighboring Suffolk County on Long Island has a registry, along with 11 counties in upstate New York, many do not.

"There really needs to be a statewide law," said Gary Rogers of the Nassau County Humane Society, which manages that county's registry established in 2014. "Otherwise, someone on our registry can just go to another county to get an animal."

Tedisco, who pushed through New York's felony animal cruelty law in 1999, said the Miss Harper case underscores the need for passage of his statewide registry law, which would also require convicted offenders to get

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