“He was in his own world,” said Evins Justin, whose family called 911 on Tuesday. When police arrived on Mount Everett Street, they arrested a 17-year-old male who was surrounded by the remains of decapitated and mutilated cats, according to a police report. He allegedly told officers he killed the animals out of boredom.
“It’s a fairly disturbing case,” said police spokeswoman Officer Rachel McGuire. “We don’t like to see this type of behavior, not only because it is cruelty to animals, who are defenseless beings, but it’s disturbing to see this behavior from a juvenile, someone so young.”
The young man, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is being held to determine whether he poses a threat to the public, law enforcement officials said. His attorney declined to comment.
The 12-year-old daughter of Justin’s girlfriend said she had seen the 17-year-old once before, when he and two other young men last week walked down behind the abandoned home, which is overgrown, boarded up, and covered with “No Trespassing” signs.
She thought nothing of it, she said, until the ball she and her siblings were playing with rolled down into the yard. When they went to get it, she said, the three young men were gone.
There was a dismembered cat lying in the yard.
Already spooked, the family immediately called 911 when they saw the young man Tuesday. He had tools with him, they said, and looked as if he were burying cat body parts in between cutting them up.
When police arrived and asked the teenager what he was doing, according to the police report, he told them he was just “hanging out.”
But as police surveyed the yard, they saw dismembered animal parts strewn about. A large machete, a folding knife, a hand saw, a trash bag, and a bottle of Clorox were found on the ground, according to the report.
The teenager initially told police that one of the animals on the ground was a possum, and then claimed that it was his cat and it was sick, so he put it out of its misery.
He allegedly gave a fake name to officers, but gave conflicting spellings, according to the report.
“What would possess you to kill the cats in a back yard?” one of the officers asked the young man, according to the report.
The teenager said he did not have money to put the cats down, but officers told him shelters would take the cats for free “and he didn’t need to do this to them.”
The teenager then told police the cats were really strays he takes in, according to the report, and he killed them because “he was bored.”
The abandoned house is home to many stray cats, neighbors said, although one man said their numbers had dwindled recently. The family that called 911 said their cat, Mischief, went missing last month.
The incident frightened residents of the leafy street near Columbia Road, who worried what — or who — could be the target of the young man’s alleged violence in the future.
“It was really scary knowing someone does that to animals,” said the 12-year-old witness. “What if he did it to people?”
The 17-year-old was charged Tuesday as a juvenile with delinquency by reason of trespassing; possession of a dangerous weapon, the machete; and two counts of mutilation and cruelty killing of animals, according to the police report.
He pleaded not delinquent Wednesday in the juvenile session of Dorchester Municipal Court Wednesday, and was ordered held without bail until Monday pending a dangerousness hearing at the request of Suffolk County prosecutors, according to Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
“It seems like it’s some kind of cry for help,” McGuire said. “The actual act itself is incredibly disturbing, but what’s more disturbing is the fact that this is a kid committing this crime. How can we help this child?”
(Boston Globe - May 13, 2015)
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