Posted on 02/17/2012 4:43:04 PM PST by GSWarrior
FRESNO, Calif. — It was the sound of a wailing cat that first caught the neighbor’s attention. When she looked toward the sound she told authorities that she saw her next-door neighbor cutting off the crying feline’s head with a knife.
The call she subsequently made to deputies started a bizarre animal cruelty investigation that has focused attention from around the country on a working-class neighborhood in a Bakersfield suburb where a man allegedly was fileting cats and cooking them on his backyard barbecue.
“I’ve been getting calls on this from around the country,” Kern County Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said. “For some reason when somebody hurts animals people are more outraged than they are for a lot of other cases.”
Investigators decided to release new details on Thursday because of the nationwide interest in the case.
Jason Wilmert, 35, will be arraigned today on charges alleging animal cruelty and using a pet or domesticated animal for food. Both are misdemeanors.
A neighbor told KBAK-TV that she had seen Wilmert with a wailing tabby cat cutting it down the back with a knife, then decapitating it. She turned away in disgust and called sheriff’s deputies.
Pruitt said that when deputies arrived that morning at Wilmert’s home they talked to other neighbors, who said they had heard the sounds of screaming cats coming from the house in Oildale. When he didn’t answer his door, Pruitt said a deputy walked down the driveway and saw a cat’s head in the backyard.
Later Pruitt came outside and deputies arrested him. When they searched his house they found a cat carcass in the kitchen sink, as if were being prepped for cooking. Deputies also found an animal trap in the driveway.
“We don’t know if he was using the trap to catch cats, but he had one,” Pruitt said.
Nobody has called in reporting missing pets, and investigators suspect the victims were strays.
Wilmert has been unable to post $22,500 bail on the animal cruelty charges and unrelated littering offenses. It was unclear if he had an attorney.
EXACTLY. I only do what my Rice Krispies tell me to do.
This is disgusting and he didn’t appear to kill humanely, but I don’t see much else wrong with it. Maybe hunting, trapping without a license? They were presumed strays.
Im glad your extensive research is watching tv cop shows. Who knows the reason for his behavior??
I’m watching a show with mutant cannibals running around (Pandorum) so I’m not too worried about whether I’ve eaten a cat or not.
Cattle rustling is illegal. I would assume that kitty rustling would be, too.
Pigs, cows, sheep, deer, fish, rabbit, turtle... cats... whatever. I don’t care much for Chinese food but as long as he kills them humanely, bon apetit.
Szechuan Cat w/noodles.
Yum Yum.
“Jason Wilmert, 35, will be arraigned today on charges alleging animal cruelty and using a pet or domesticated animal for food.”
Cattle, swine, sheep, chickens are all domesticated animals.
If it was obvious he had quickly and cleanly subdued them before skinning them then I'd be quite confident in my assertion that he was doing this purely out of hunger, but his apparent torture or sloppiness may also be inexperience.
At one time, I taught a wilderness survival course where students were given live rabbits and chickens to kill and eat. Even though the students were taught the best ways to cleanly dispatch the animals, those that were not familiar or comfortable with killing animals for food were quite sloppy about it, and you would have been hard pressed to distinguish what they were doing from "torture" although that was the furthest thing from their intent.
They were other people’s animals, not his. Lots of people would kill the bastard if he was slaughtering their pets.
Isn't that the normal practice? First they're alive, then they're dead.
If you read how he was killing them, and can’t see that as animal cruelty and getting off on their reaction to deliberate pain, I feel for ya.
“One step away from serial killer.”
Beware of the correlation argument. While it is true that most heroin addict have a history of using grass, nearly all have a history of using milk.
By your argument, milk causes heroin addiction.
PS Google “A Cat In The Kettle”.
sentenced to three years of probation after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of possessing a cat with the intent to use it for food.
The Bakersfield Californian reports that 35-year-old Jason Wilmert of Oildale was sentenced on Friday, the same day he entered the plea. Prosecutors agreed to drop an animal cruelty charge.
Wilmert must also perform 40 hours of community service and pay a $235 fine.
http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x1608245381/Oildale-man-pleads-no-contest-to-cat-eating-charge
Another misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty, as well as two misdemeanors and an infraction from a prior case filed in 2005, were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
http://www.kval.com/news/national/Cat-eating-man-avoids-more-jail-time-with-plea-deal-139531468.html
“Cattle rustling is illegal. I would assume that kitty rustling would be, too.”
The central question is, “Are the cats private property or not?”
If not, the taking of cats probably should be incouraged, given their rather negative impacts on the habitats they infest.
PS Google the Toxiplasmosis issue, before you keep cats around. If the researcher is right, the “Cat Persons” are crazy, and they caught it from their cats.
The Link Between Animal Abuse and Serial Killers
National District Attorneys Association —
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BY CHILDREN, SERIAL KILLERS & OTHER VIOLENT CRIMINALS
(March 3, 2006) (pdf file)
http://www.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/animal_fighting/ndaa-animal-cruelty-killers-2-28-06-_2_.pdf
Do you know how he was killing them or how the neighbor said he was killing them?
If what the neighbor described is accurate, yeah...it was cruel. Look, this guy may be the biggest psycho out there, and while I can't think of a good reason to eat a cat right now, I have a job and food in my 'fridge. During the Depression, the stories are legion of people eating rats, pigeons, and other unconventional food stuffs. For all we know, this guy may be a bellwether of things to come for us all. For that matter, he may have been trying to reenact the opening scenes of, "The Book Of Eli."
Certainly this guy's behavior deviates from conventional behavioral norms, and calling the cops was the right thing to do, but at this point, I'm not quite ready to call him the next Ted Bundy or Geoffrey Dahmer.
Plus we have the well known problem of children being attacked by packs of feral pit bullcats.
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