DENVER — The culprit responsible for this area’s recent string of gruesome cat mutilations is still at large, but authorities now have a description.
Pet owners should be on the lookout for a short, unshaven stranger with a pointed nose and sharp canines who answers to the name “Wile E.”
A yearlong investigation that drew international attention and started a police search for a sadistic killer ended last week when wildlife experts ruled that the unfortunate felines were done in by predators of the animal — not human — variety.
Red foxes, coyotes and domestic dogs ripped apart the 46 domestic cats found dead around the Denver metro area, according to a task force convened by the Aurora Police Department.
A parallel investigation in Salt Lake City, where 12 cats were found similarly killed, reached the same conclusion a few days earlier. Both cases had received widespread media attention, with calls from reporters coming from as far as Moscow.
At one point, the Aurora police had assigned six officers to the case, including one full-time detective, and was holding daily meetings on their progress. The department fielded more 200 tips on the matter, said Detective Rudy Herrera.
“I think everyone got caught up with the mutilation theory, and that’s what everyone was focusing on until the [predation] experts got here,” said Detective Herrera. “Before that, we were all at a loss. No one knew how to deal with this, and we had all these dead cat bodies.”
The mutilation idea took hold after the first few cats were found torn in half, eviscerated or decapitated with what was initially described as surgical precision. The animals were also found near their homes, some in their own front yards, in suburban Aurora, fueling suspicions of foul play.
“The initial reports were that ’someone killed my cat, and it was dissected; it was bisected; it looked surgically done.’ So no one thought to look at predators at first,” said Colorado Department of Wildlife spokeswoman Cameron Lewis.
In addition, the initial investigations were conducted by animal-control officials. “Animal-control investigators tend to see a lot of cruelty, so the first thing they think is, ’It’s a person,’” said Temma Martin, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake County Animal Services.
It wasn’t until local wildlife experts were invited to the table last month that the predation theory began receiving serious scrutiny. After viewing slides of the corpses, Jack Murphy, executive director of Urban Wildlife Rescue, suggested that the panel hire wildlife veterinarians to perform necropsies, or animal autopsies.
“The task force realized at one point that the vets who had been doing the necropsies were kind of misjudging a lot of them. They weren’t used to seeing pets in this condition,” Mr. Murphy said.
The 10 necropsies revealed tiny bites in the flesh consistent with foxes and coyotes. Both have very sharp teeth that can rip an animal’s hide cleanly, giving it the outward appearance of a surgical cut.
“Predators will grab a cat by the neck, and the cat’s natural response is to jump backward, which rips off the front section of the body,” said Mrs. Lewis. “Under a microscope, you could see that it was caused by a bite.”
Another puzzle for investigators was the absence of some internal organs, which led to theories that they were being used for bizarre rituals. But wildlife experts concluded that foxes had taken them back to their dens for their young.
There was also a notable absence of blood at the scenes, which was later attributed to the killing and feeding patterns of predators. In some cases, the cats appeared to have been fed on by a number of animals, including dogs, magpies, skunks and raccoons.
“People were asking, ’If a coyote kills a cat, why doesn’t it eat the whole cat?’ Well, an eight-to-10 pound cat is too much for a coyote, so he’ll leave what he doesn’t want,” Mr. Murphy said. “Then other animals will come and eat some more, so by the time we see it, the evidence has been tampered with.”
The task force also concluded that the cats were decapitated by owls, which use their sharp claws to lift their prey by the head and shave off its body in flight.
The news came as a relief to some pet owners. “I called one woman before the news came out, and she said, ’I’m just relieved that my cat wasn’t hanging in someone’s garage being tortured,’” Miss Martin said. “The predators are still out there, but it’s nice to know there’s no deranged bad guy.”
Both Salt Lake City and Denver area authorities plan to put their hard-won knowledge to work by creating a Web site, with photographs, for other police departments.
Finding 46 dead cats in one year sounds high, but Mr. Murphy said it’s common in communities near wildlife habitat. What’s changed is that Western suburbs are spreading into previously wild areas.
“This used to be semi-arid high desert, but we’re created a riparian area,” Mr. Murphy said. “We’ve actually created some of the best fox and coyote habitat in the nation.”
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