Brazenly Abducted from His Home in Broad Daylight by an Auto Parts Delivery Man and Then Allegedly Dumped, Dot Is Nowhere to Be Found Almost Four Months after the Fact

Dot Lived Contentedly with Heidi Dalbec for Almost a Decade

"He was really a special little guy, very friendly and outgoing. The kind of cat who loved car rides, which is rare. So I was always so careful with him."
-- Heidi Dalbec

Given that tens of millions of cats are mercilessly slaughtered each year simply because they do not have responsible owners to care for them, it at first thought seems rather odd that anyone would go to the trouble of stealing one as opposed to adopting from either a shelter or the street. Even so, the theft of cats is not all that rare and when it does occur it usually ends tragically for both the victims and their distraught owners.

Sadly, that harsh reality has been foisted upon Heidi Dalbec of tiny Watertown, forty-nine kilometers west of Minneapolis, with an unstinting severity. Her heartbreak began innocuously enough on October 10th when she unwittingly ordered some supplies to be delivered to her home by a local auto parts purveyor.

After the delivery man, twenty-three-year-old Byron Thomas Vieau of Rockford, twenty kilometers north of Watertown, had departed she noticed that her beloved twelve-year-old longhaired tuxedo Dot was nowhere to be found. Luckily, she had equipped her residence on the 2600 block of County Road 127 with a surveillance camera that not only captures still images but live video and audio as well. It was thus while reviewing the footage that she saw and heard Dot come meowing up to Vieau.

The delivery man then bent down and stroked him before the pair disappeared out of range of the camera. Regrettably, it has not been disclosed if Vieau had made previous deliveries to Dalbec but since she owns and operates HD Landscaping there is a good chance that from time to time she is in need of replacement parts for some of the equipment that she improvises in her occupation.

It accordingly is entirely conceivable that Vieau not only already knew Dot but that he had had his eye on him for some time. Regardless of whether or not that was indeed the case, the footage was sufficient in itself in order to convince her that he had driven away with Dot in his large, unmarked white van.

Although it has not been disclosed either when Vieau stole Dot or how much time had elapsed before Dalbec got around to reviewing the surveillance tape, at 2:32 p.m. that same day she promptly notified the Carver County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) in Chaska, thirty-three kilometers southeast of Watertown; the city itself does not have a police force. "The owner of the cat reported a delivery driver that was at her residence appeared to take an interest in the cat," a spokesperson for the CCSO later told KDUZ Radio of Hutchinson, forty-eight kilometers west of Watertown, on January 3rd. (See "Rockford Man Charged for Allegedly Stealing Cat.") "The reporting party looked for the cat after the driver left and was unable to locate the cat."

What transpired next never has been explained but if prior cases of this sort are any gauge the CCSO did absolutely nothing and that it turn sealed Dot's fate. What it and, by extension, any responsible and halfway legitimate law enforcement agency should have done is an entirely different matter.

First of all, Vieau should have been taken into custody and relentlessly interrogated until he confessed to what he had done with Dot. That is unquestionably what the CCSO would have done if he had abducted either a child or an adult.

Secondly, search warrants should have been immediately issued for his van, workplace, and residence. Thirdly, a forensic team should have been dispatched in order to have gone over him, his van, workplace, and residence for the presence of Dot's fur and DNA which then could have been matched up against residual amounts of the same that he had left behind in his bed, at his feeding station, and elsewhere inside Dalbec's residence.

Fourthly, he should have been placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance because he could have stashed Dot almost anywhere. As a delivery man, he not only knows the area but is able to come and go almost anywhere that he chooses without attracting the least bit of suspicion and that in turn provides him with a large latitude in which to operate.

Moreover, that is likely how that the extremely clever Thurston County Cat Killer operates. (See Cat Defender post of November 23, 2018 entitled "The Thurston County Cat Killer Is Allowed to Get Away with Stealing and Carving Up at Least Fourteen Cats Thanks to the Blasé Attitude and Ineptitude of the Law Enforcement Community.")

Fifthly, the CCSO could have employed bloodhounds in order to have located Dot. In the unlikely event that it does not have dogs of its own, a professional animal tracker, such as Pure Gold Pet Trackers (PGPT) of Berryville, Virginia, could have been called in to have done the job.

Sixthly, once the search had been narrowed down to a manageable area, thermal imaging could have been employed. It was precisely it and the efforts of PGPT that ultimately led to the retrieval on December 6th of a three-year-old German cat named Milo that Luftansa Airlines had lost earlier on October 3rd at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington. (See The Washington Post, December 11, 2019, "Milo the Cat Went Missing at the Airport in October. Two Months Later, He's Been Reunited with His Owner.")

Unable from all accounts to have gotten so much as the time of day out of the CCSO, Dalbec was cruelly and shamefully left to go it alone. "I knew in my gut what had happened to Dot, but at that time I just couldn't prove it," she helplessly conceded in an undated posting on Facebook.

It is nothing short of appalling that the no-good, bone-lazy rotters at the CCSO left her and Dot hung out to dry. Much more importantly, private citizens should never be abandoned to track down and confront on their own cat thieves and killers if for no other reason than that some of these perpetrators also could be homicidal maniacs.

Nevertheless, that is the dilemma faced by cat owners all over the world. For instance, Scotland Yard refuses to investigate cases of cruelty to cats even when their aggrieved and courageous owners, such as Amy Jo Bland of the West Ham section of East London, are willing to do its work for it. (See Cat Defender post of December 18, 2018 entitled "The Brutal Attackers of Mr. Solly Walk in a Lark All Because the Rotters at Scotland Yard Were Too Bone-Lazy, Derelict, and Ailurophobic to Even Examine the Evidence Supplied Them by His Distraught Owner.")

Left without any other recourse Dalbec, like Bland before her, was forced into taking matters into her own hands. "I realized almost right away what had happened, tracked down the individual and confronted him," she continued in the Facebook posting cited supra. "He lied saying he did not take my cat."

Not believing him for one moment, she elected to have another go at him. "I approached him again, pleading with him to just give my cat back and I will drop the entire thing, but he lied again," she concluded.

Having now exhausted all the arrows in her quiver, Dalbec did the only thing that she could and that was to retain the services of an unidentified private dick who on December 11th was finally able to coax a handwritten confession out of Vieau. As if Dalbec did not already know his identity, he oddly enough began his rambling mea culpa by declaring, "My name is Byron..."

Vieau Is Caught on Camera Luring Away Dot from Home

After that he went on to admit that he had "unfortunately made a poor judgment decision to take your cat." He next nonsensically declared himself to be "a huge animal lover" who only "wanted to have a pet of my own."

Notwithstanding those declarations, Vieau's professed love for Dot turned out to have lasted about as long as an ice cream cone left in the sun on a hot day in July. "I did make an impulse choice right outside Watertown to let the cat go," he continued. "I started feeling awful and quickly shoved the cat out of my car. I do not know where it went after that."

Whereas cruelly stealing someone's cat is bad enough in its own right, to dump one is even worse. Furthermore, such callous and totally inexcusable behavior proves conclusively that he is anything but a cat-lover.

Unless he was perhaps rehearsing an insanity defense, his summation proved to be the ne plus ultra in reductio ad absurdum logic. "I never wanted to be a bad guy, just wanted to give it a home." C'est-à-dire, like all criminals he does not have any qualms about stealing and dumping a cat; it is only getting caught that troubles him.

The trail has long grown cold by now but if he had specified exactly where he had dumped Dot it still might be remotely possible to track him down. The strong suspicion, however, is that even the shamus was unable to coerce him into revealing that valuable piece of information. Even more disheartening, "outside of Watertown" could mean almost anywhere.

For whatever it is worth, he insists that he "never hurt it" and hopes that "they can find it where (he) dropped it off." Whereas it is not known how much that Dalbec paid the gumshoe, it is difficult to see how that Vieau's belated confession brings her any closer to locating Dot; in reality, it amounts to little more than she already had fathomed beforehand.

Her money accordingly might have been better spent having the peeper follow Vieau in the hope that such an undertaking would eventually have led him to Dot's whereabouts. Even more puzzling is his decision to finally come clean after having denied stealing Dot for a full two months.

On December 19th, Dalbec posted the surveillance video of Vieau stealing Dot on her Facebook page. As to why that she had held off in doing so for so long, it is assumed that up until that juncture she still retained some glimmer of hope that she could convince him into voluntarily returning Dot.

Even so it was not until January 2nd that Sheriff Jason Kamerud finally got around to charging Vieau with one count of misdemeanor animal theft and one count of misdemeanor animal abandonment. He remains at large, however, and presumably on his own recognizance. (See Carver County Sheriff's Office, Press Release of January 2, 2020, "Theft-Animal Abandonment.")

Considering that Vieau had confessed in writing to the gumshoe on December 11th, it is inexplicable that it took the CCSO a little more than three weeks in order to arrest him. In fact, he should have been arrested on October 10th based solely upon the surveillance tape and Dalbec's testimony.

It certainly appears that the CCSO not only never wanted any part of this matter from the outset but also that it went out of its way in order to stiff Dalbec at every turn. If that is true, it certainly would be more than a little interesting to know what finally prompted it to get off the schneid and to act.

Regrettably, Vieau's belated arrest contributed absolutely nothing toward putting an end to the shabby treatment that Dalbec had received so far. The only thing that changed was that the local capitalistic media now replaced the CCSO in ignoring her plight and, much more importantly, that of her beloved cat as well.

For example, it was not until January 3rd that they picked up the story of Dot's abduction and that was the first inkling that the outside world had that either he or his owner even so much as existed. Even in doing that much, the media contented themselves with merely rewriting the CCSO's press release of a day earlier.

The sole exception to that iron rule of indifference was WCCO-TV of Minneapolis which on January 3rd not only posted the surveillance video on its web site but actually dispatched one of its reporters to Watertown in order to interview Dalbec. (See " 'I Never Meant to Be a Bad Guy': Delivery Driver Confesses to Stealing Cat.")

Following that initial effort even it has dropped the story like a hot potato. The outside world thus has been left to surmise that Dot is still missing.

As for Vieau, he was scheduled to have been arraigned January 27th before Judge Janet L. Barke Cain in First Judicial District Court in Chaska. Based upon his December 11th written confession, he was expected to have pled guilty to both of the charges lodged against him but he could have changed his mind once again and entered an altogether different plea.

Even once his case finally comes to trial it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that the presiding judge will let him off with a minuscule fine and perhaps court costs. He therefore will be allowed to carry the secret of Dot's demise to his grave and there will be little, if anything, that Dalbec can do about it.

The only fly in his ointment is the petit fait that a Mary Dalbec is the court administrator for the First Judicial District and it is just possible that she is related to Dalbec. Even if that should prove to be the case, it is uncertain if she is in any position to do anything positive for either Dot or Dalbec.

Attempting to fathom what courses through a gourd as twisted as Vieau's is at best only guesswork. Nevertheless, such an effort needs to be made.

First of all, although he is an admitted liar it is nonetheless entirely possible that he is telling the truth about dumping Dot. If that should be true, it is difficult to imagine how that the elderly cat that Dalbec adopted, presumably from a shelter, almost a decade ago would be able to survive on his own, especially if he has been cruelly declawed.

Sheriff Jason Kamerud Did Absolutely Nothing to Locate Dot

Besides the monumental difficulties associated with procuring food, water, and shelter, Minnesota is a perilous environment for any footloose cat. Not only would he have to contend with both human and animal predators in an unfamiliar landscape, but his biggest menace would be motorists.

In that light, it can only be hoped that Vieau did not dump him in traffic as was done to the Chattanooga kitten and to so many other cats and kittens as well every day of the week. (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, an Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It.")

Nevertheless, stealing and then dumping cats is a rather common occurrence. For example, on December 4, 2016 an unidentified man and woman abducted a ginger-colored tom named Mr. Cheeky from outside the residence of his owners, Ollie Wilson and Laura King, in Hove, East Sussex.

Even though his theft had been captured in black and white on a neighbor's surveillance camera, nothing further was either seen or heard of him until he was run down and killed by a hit-and-run motorist on January 28, 2017. (See Cat Defender post of February 8, 2017 entitled "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

Although there is not anything in the public record to even remotely suggest that Vieau is an amateur ornithologist, stealing and dumping cats at remote locales is a favorite tactic of those cat-hating devils and their professional counterparts. Moreover, their victims often suffer the same fate as Mr. Cheeky. (See Cat Defender posts of October 10, 2007 and November 16, 2007 entitled, respectively, "A Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts" and "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton.")

Gardeners and wildlife biologists also liberally engage in the same patently unlawful tactic although in their case they are more likely to turn over the cats that they steal to shelters so as to have them do their dirty work for them. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006, August 19, 2010, and August 26, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps His Neighbors' Cats and Then Gives Them to a Shelter to Exterminate," "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw," and "In Stark Contrast to Ailurophobic America, Ziegelchen's Illegal Trapping by a Gardener in Altstädten-Burbach is Roundly Condemned in Deutschland.")

Even if Dot somehow were able to avoid all of those perils, he would still be at the mercy of the elements and winters in Minnesota are deadly cold and snowy. In that regard, however, he seems to have caught a break, that is if he is still on his own.

According to data supplied by the National Weather Service, the thermometer in and around Watertown did not dip below freezing until October 25th and even then the lowest reading for the month was 23°F recorded on October 30th. During the month of November, nighttime lows ranged from 31°F on both November 26th and November 30th to 5°F on November 12th.

Even so, the thermometer was below freezing every night and two inches of snow fell on November 26th and that was followed by another 7.2 inches a day later on November 27th and 2.9 inches on November 30th. There were a few additional bursts of snow interspersed throughout the month but all of them with accumulations of less than an inch.

Conditions worsened substantially during December with sub-zero overnight lows have been recorded on December 9th, December 10th, December 11th, and December 15th. Single-digit readings also were recorded on December 12th, December 13th, December 14th, December 17th, and December 18th. All of those nights would have been difficult for any homeless cat to have gotten through but thanks to his fourteen pounds of weight and long fur Dot should have been able to have persevered if he could have gotten underneath either a house or some other structure.

Two other hazards of winter, antifreeze and the siren call of warm automobile engines, would have been lethal for him, however. (See Cat Defender posts of July 2, 2007 and January 5, 2006 entitled, respectively, "Cats Are Being Poisoned with Antifreeze in San Francisco but Animal Control Refuses to Take the Killings Seriously" and "A 'Miracle' Cat Survives a Seventy-Mile Trip Down the New Jersey Turnpike by Clinging to the Drive Shaft of an SUV.")

Dot also would have benefited from the fact that not all that much snow fell on Watertown during the month of December. For instance, 1.6 inches ushered in the new month on December 1st, another 2.5 inches fell on December 9th, 1.7 inches on December 12th, and half an inch came down the following day of December 13th.

Watertown's comparatively mild winter continued during the first half of January without any sub-zero readings until January 11th when the thermometer plummeted to -1°F and to -2°F on January 15th. Eight-tenths of an inch of snow fell on January 8th followed by an inch on January 13th and that was all for the first half of the month.

It thus is remotely conceivable that Dot could still be both alive and on his own somewhere in the vicinity of Watertown. If so, it is unlikely that his luck is going to hold out for much longer.

All that it would take would be either one prolonged blast of Arctic air or a huge snowstorm and that surely would be the end of him. (See Cat Defender posts of May 8, 2009, January 21, 2010, February 2, 2015, February 23, 2015, March 14, 2015, February 15, 2019, and March 23, 2019 entitled, respectively, "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona," "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer," "Cruelly Declawed and Locked Up Indoors for All of His Life, Nicky Is Suddenly Thrust into the Bitter Cold and Snow for Twenty-One Consecutive Days with Predictably Tragic Results," "Abandoned to Tough It Out by His Lonesome in the Deadly Michigan Cold and Snow, Flick Sustains Horrific Injuries to His Front Paws When They Become Frozen to a Porch," "Ace Is Found Frozen to a Porch with His Eyes Goughed Out but the Authorities Are Too Lazy, Cheap, and Ailurophobic to Go After His Assailant," "A Wabash College Student Risks His Life in Order to Save a Cat That Had Fallen Through the Ice on a Frozen Lake but That Was Far from Being the End of Its Miseries," and "Fluffy Is Brought Back from the Dead after She Is Found Comatose in a Sarcophagus of Frozen Snow and Ice in Frigid Montana.")

Other than retaining the services of a private dick, it is not known what other measures that Dalbec has undertaken in order to locate Dot. Nevertheless, in hindsight she might have been better off contacting the capitalistic media as well as going on social media as soon as Dot disappeared and the CCSO had stiffed her.

That at least would have alerted local residents to have been on the lookout for him. She always has had other ideas, however, and they must be respected given that she is the one who is closest to the situation. "I still don't believe he dumped him," she averred to WCCO-TV in the video cited supra.

Although it is not believed that Dot was either tagged or tattooed, he was microchipped and the mere fact that he has not turned up at a shelter is one piece of evidence in support of her way of thinking. Surgeries, on the other hand, are a good deal more problematic in that they normally do not scan cats for chips unless they have a good reason for doing so.

Furthermore, they usually do not hang on to those who do not have either chips, tags, or tattoos. (See Cat Defender post of June 26, 2012 entitled "A Family in Wiltshire Turns to Social Media and Leaflets in Order to Shame a Veterinary Chain and a Foster Parent into Returning Tazzy.")

  Byron Thomas Vieau's Belated Confession

It additionally is informative to note that Dot has not found his way back home on his own. Although it is difficult to know exactly what to think about all those news reports concerning cats that have been able to miraculously locate their owners after they have either relocated elsewhere or they themselves have been dumped at distant locations, there would appear to be a measure of truth in at least some of them. (See Cat Defender posts of April 27, 2007 and April 10, 2014 entitled, respectively, "A French Chat Named Mimine Allegedly Walks Eight-Hundred-Thirty Kilometers in Order to Track Down the Family That Abandoned Her" and "Mayhem Inexplicitly Finds His Way to the New Address of the North Carolina Woman Who Earlier Had Cruelly Abandoned Him.")

A second possibility is that Vieau still has custody of Dot and does not have any intention whatsoever of returning him to Dalbec. Numerous individuals steal cats and afterwards fabricate all kinds of cockeyed reasoning in order to justify their larcenous conduct.

For example, in June of 2007 an unidentified woman stole a seventeen-year-old, longhaired tuxedo named Slim off the streets of the New Edinburgh neighborhood in Ottawa. His owners, Michel Giroux and Tanya Guay, only learned of his fate when she informed them of that fact by mail after obtaining their address from his tag.

"This is to inform you that I have your cat," the epistle began. "Obviously, I have no intention of returning him to the city street to be neglected again. If you really do care about his well-being, you'll be happy that he now lives a safe, sweet, peaceful happy life."

That stunning development and the accompanying lecture on the proper care of a cat left Giroux apoplectic. "Who does this person think she is to decide this cat is neglected?" he raged. "This person has taken it upon themselves (sic) to think that they (sic) have saved a cat when in point of fact, this cat is not neglected and he's loved and we just want him home."

As far as it is known, Giroux and Guay never again laid eyes on Slim. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")

The only known similarity between Slim and Dot is Vieau's assertion in his December 11th confession that he "just wanted to give it (Dot) a home." Even that does not make sense in that he surely was well aware that he belonged to Dalbec.

A third possible explanation is that he has killed Dot. "...the unfortunate feline species seemed to be fair game for every kind of cruelty and neglect," celebrated veterinarian and author James Herriot declared in his 1994 book, Cat Stories. "They shot cats, threw things at them and set their dogs on them for fun."

Complicating matters further, not all feline abusers and killers are ornithologists, wildlife biologists, gardeners, and other assorted sociopaths. Even so-called pillars of society have been known to attack cats if presented with the right opportunity.

For instance on August 21, 2010, forty-five-year-old spinster and bank cashier Mary Bale from Coventry in Warwickshire picked up off the street a four-year-old female named Lola and nonchalantly stuffed her into a wheelie bin in order to be collected and subsequently killed by the garbagemen. Luckily, she was spared that awful fate when her owners, Stephanie and Darryl Andrews-Mann, learned of her desperate plight fifteen hours later after reviewing footage from a surveillance camera mounted outside their residence.

Let off by District Judge Caroline Goulborn of Coventry Magistrates' Court with a paltry £250 fine and £1,171 in court costs, Bale was anything but chastened. "I don't know what all the fuss is about," she earlier had told the Daily Mail on August 26, 2010. (See "Greyhaired Bank Worker Who Dumped Cat in Wheelie Bin Could Face Court as RSPCA Prosecutors Review Case.") "It's just a cat."

A fourth possibility could be that Vieau has sold Dot to either a research laboratory, a fur trafficker, or a concern that deals in feline flesh. Fifthly, it is remotely conceivable that he could have been motivated by a romantic interest in Dalbec. After all, she is unquestionably an attractive and vivacious young woman and he could have stolen Dot in a ploy to get next to her.

Regardless of his motivation and what he ultimately did with Dot, the most logical explanation is that he no longer has possession of him. Otherwise, he most likely would have cut a deal with the private dick and thus avoided being arrested and forced to stand trial.

Even though the situation looks to be all but hopeless, Dalbec needs to continue to operate on the premise that Dot is still alive. Her first order of business therefore should be to contact Carver County prosecuting attorney Mark Metz in Chaska.

Perhaps she could prevail upon him to cut a deal with Vieau that would secure the return of Dot. If that is not feasible, she should ask him to order the CCSO to issue search warrants for Vieau's residence and workplace.

She additionally could ask him about having the CCSO put Vieau under twenty-four-hour surveillance. If he is unwilling to do even that much, she will be left with no alternative other than to have her private investigator undertake that task.

Secondly, if she has not done so already she should contact all shelters and veterinarians in at least Watertown and Rockford and to ask them to be on the lookout for Dot. Thirdly, it is not too late for blanketing the area with Lost Cat posters and doing some door-to-door canvassing.

Fourthly, she needs to increase her presence on social media so as to get as many individuals as possible involved in the search for Dot. Perhaps she also could inveigle WCCO-TV into doing a follow-up story.

Fifthly, it is paramount that she file a civil lawsuit against the unidentified auto parts company for which Vieau works. When originally contacted by WCCO-TV the business, which is owned by Vieau's father, refused comment.

Sixthly, she might want to consider having a psychologist take a look at Vieau's confession in order to gain a professional's insight into his personality and behavior. Seventhly, she might want to call in the assistance of an animal communicator.

Heidi Dalbec with an Unidentified Cat 

For example, Tanja Bärtschiger of Bundesverband Tierkommunikation Schweiz in Zeihen, twenty-five kilometers northwest of Aargau, claims to be able to locate lost cats through a combination of photographs, mental telepathy, and remote viewing. If Dalbec should prefer not to range quite so far afield, there surely must be similar professionals operating in Minneapolis and St. Paul. (See Cat Defender post of October 5, 2019 entitled "Is Chatting Up Cats in the Neighborhood a Productive Means of Locating One That Has Gone AWOL? Some Individuals in Japan Swear That It Is.")

If she should elect to go that route, she would be well-advised to obtain references and testimonials before forking over any money in that some critics claim that this emerging profession is a scam. In that light, Bärtschiger would be the better choice in that she offers a money back guarantee for her services. Besides, Germans are far more honest than Americans; with the latter, most everything is either a racket, a lie, or pure bullshit.

Eighthly, she needs to religiously keep her contact data current and to continue paying her dues to the database company that services Dot's microchip. Miracles still do occur every once in a while in this world and cats long believed to be dead as well as those who have become separated from their owners by continents and mighty oceans have been found alive more than a decade later thanks to these new identification devices. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2010 and August 26, 2015 entitled, respectively, "A Winnipeg Family Is Astounded by Tiger Lily's Miraculous Return after Having Been Believed Dead for Fourteen Years" and "A Myriad of Cruel and Unforgivable Abandonments, a Chinese Puzzle, and Finally the Handing Down and Carrying Out of a Death Sentence Spell the End of Long-Suffering and Peripatetic Tigger," plus CNN, November 26, 2019, "A Cat Missing for Five Years Was Found Twelve-Hundred Miles Away. He Was Just Reunited with His Owner.")

As sad and tragic as it is, there nevertheless are several vitally important lessons to be learned from Vieau's theft of Dot. The most important of which is the vulnerability of overly friendly cats.

"He was really a special little guy, very friendly and outgoing," Dalbec told WCCO-TV in the video cited supra. "The kind of cat who loved car rides, which is rare. So I was always so careful with him."

She was not careful enough, however, at least not on October 10th and that faux pas cost her his continued companionship.

The socialization of cats is a double-edged sword. Whereas the friendly ones have a much better chance of making it out of shelters alive than do their skittish cousins, it is precisely their outgoing personalities that make them not only attractive to cat thieves like Vieau but their abductions a piece of cake.

On the other hand, it is difficult for thieves to get their larcenous hands on those that possess a healthy distrust of humans. Correspondingly, it is precisely their wary personalities that shelters, Animal Control officers, veterinarians, and others use as a convenient excuse in order to snuff out their lives.

Although less socialized cats do not have any defenses against traps, they are in many respects far better off than those that are too friendly. Generally speaking, cats should be trained not to either approach strangers or to accept food from them. (See Cat Defender post of July 14, 2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Her Home for Almost a Decade.")

Secondly, even though microchips have become very popular identification devices in recent years, they are not any substitute for collars, tags, and tattoos. Perhaps in this case if Dot had been collared and tagged that would have been sufficient in order to have stilled Vieau's stealing hands.

Thirdly, this case has demonstrated once again the value of good surveillance equipment. Without it, Dalbec would have been clueless as to what had become of Dot. (See Cat Defender post of February 22, 2017 entitled "The Months of Unrelenting Abuse Meted Out to Elfie by a Roommate Graphically Demonstrate the Advantages as Well as the Limitations of Using Surveillance Cameras in Order to Protect Cats.")

Fourthly, considering the utter unwillingness of both the law enforcement community and so-called animal protection groups to even investigate, let alone prosecute, crimes perpetrated against cats, this case once more has demonstrated writ large that private detectives are about the only recourse available to aggrieved owners. The laws urgently need to be amended, however, so as to permit them to both make arrests as well as to lay charges and to prosecute cases of animal cruelty. (See Cat Defender post of April 2, 2015 entitled "A Cornishman Shells Out £10,000 on Private Peepers in Order to Track Down Farah's Killer but Once Again Gets Stiffed by Both the Police and the RSPCA.")

Fifthly, the theft of Dot reaffirms that anyone, any animal, conveyance, and container that either enters or exits a cat's home, garden, or neighborhood is thoroughly capable of claiming its life. (See Cat Defender posts of August 28, 2006, September 22, 2019, November 6, 2006, June 1, 2012, July 16, 2007, and July 21, 2008 entitled, respectively, "A Marauding Pack of Vicious Raccoons Rips Ten House Cats to Shreds and Terrorizes Residents in Olympia but Wildlife Officials Refuse to Intervene," "Sparkle Is Killed on the Front Stoop of Her House by an Unleashed Dog in the Latest of Centuries-Old Deadly Attacks That Bear the Unmistakable Imprimatur of the House of Commons," "Trapped in a Moving Van for Five Days, a Texas Cat Named Neo Is Finally Freed in Colorado," "A Tattoo Unravels Burli's Secret Past but It Is a Radio Broadcast That Ultimately Leads to His Happy Reunion with His Forever Grateful Current Guardian," "Accidentally Trapped in a Shipping Crate, a Calico Cat Named Spice Survives a Nineteen-Day Sea Voyage from Hawaii to San Bernardino," and "Janosch Survives Being Sent Through the Post from Bayern to the Rhineland.")

Looking at this terrible tragedy from a much broader perspective, it is nothing short of mindboggling the myriad of things that can go wrong with the care of a cat. Clearly, being an owner is not for the faint of heart.

Most distressing of all, whereas most owners have the luxury of living and learning from their past mistakes that is anything but the case with their beloved companions. Au contraire, with them it is all-too-often a case of one strike and they are out, not temporarily but permanently.

In Dalbec's case, she has been forced into paying a hefty price for momentarily taking her eye off of Dot. "It has been very upsetting and stressing," she acknowledged to WCCO-TV in the video cited supra. "I've lost a lot of sleep over it."

Worst still, there does not appear to be any end in sight to her suffering and pain in that Vieau, quite obviously, is not the type of individual who is capable of empathizing with the feelings and needs of either her or Dot. He accordingly should be locked up in some hellhole prison and kept there until he comes clean but everyone knows that the courts are not about to oblige.

The only palliative for Dalbec accordingly might be for her to redouble her efforts in order to locate him as opposed to merely giving up in despair. That at least would give her tortured and beleaguered soul a temporary respite from the apparent hopelessness of the situation.

Such an undertaking would require, however, a considerable investment of time, toil, and money and only she knows if she has any more of those valuable commodities to expend. What she most assuredly does have is US$2,000 which she is offering as a reward for information leading to Dot's return and she accordingly can be reached at work at 763-242-4006.

Photos: Heidi Dalbec (Dot, the abduction, and confession), Facebook (Dalbec with another cat), and Carver County (Kamerud).

A North Sioux City Police Officer Who Stole and Shot Cats Is Shown Nothing but Love by a Morally Depraved Good Old Girl Jurist Who Is Not Even Fit to Clean Toilets

Derek McIntosh Is Now Even More Full of Himself Than Before

The prosecution is "making a mountain out of a molehill" and it is "unthinkable" for McIntosh to go to jail. "He was ordered to take that cat out to the country and get rid of it."
-- defense attorney Richard Scott Rhinehart

Contrary to popular opinion, death and taxes are far from being the only sure things in this wicked old world. For instance, every time that a cop steals and kills a cat it is a foregone conclusion that his handsomely paid protectors within America's thoroughly corrupt legal and political establishment are going to close ranks behind him and pull out all the stops so as to guarantee that he gets away scot-free with his heinous crime.

To that ever growing list of publicly-licensed cat killers the name of Derek McIntosh of the North Sioux City Police Department (NSCPD) must now be added. No one in and around that small South Dakotan town has been willing to speculate as to either exactly how long that he has been at it or how many cats that he has killed with his trusty service revolver, but the strong suspicion is that his victims number in the dozens if not indeed the hundreds.

It had been clear sailing for him until May 5th of last year when an unidentified black and white cat belonging to John Cleary and Morgan Bernard mysteriously vanished from their residence. Press reports are unclear but the cat apparently was trapped by either McIntosh or the couple's next-door neighbor, forty-year-old Matt R. Vanderpool of 2 Alcoma Drive.

Although McIntosh thereafter lied his ugly, fat face off in an amateurish attempt to save his rotten hide, the truth about what transpired afterwards eventually emerged. As was his modus operandi with all the other cats that he got his hands on, he took their cat to McCook Cemetery where he put a bullet in its tiny head and left its remains above ground to be consumed by a flock of turkey buzzards.

This time around, however, he slipped up by informing Cleary that the NSCPD sometimes took cats to McCook and released them which, by the way, is in violation of a city ordinance that mandates that those with tags be either returned to their owners or delivered up to the Siouxland Humane Society (SHS) in Sioux City across the border in neighboring Iowa. Still living in the Dark Ages, the diabolical monsters who call the shots in North Sioux City allow for homeless cats to be shot on sight.

It is not believed that Cleary and Bernard's cat was tagged but it could have been microchipped. Even so, that latter expedient would not have saved it given that the NSCPD is so thirsty for feline blood that it does not even bother to check for implanted microchips.

On May 8th, Cleary ventured to McCook where he made a simply horrifying discovery. There was "a pile of two or three cats and it was hard to tell because of the turkey vultures," he afterwards told KMEG-TV of Sioux City on May 14th. (See "Investigation Underway Following Reports of Dead Cats in North Sioux City.") "My cat was on top with a whole hole from a gunshot wound I imagined."

On May 9th, officers Stephanie and Andrew Ryan, who had known of McIntosh's criminal conduct for some time, informed Captain Dustin Sharkey of his activities. Later that same day he and Chief of Police Richard Headid went to McCook where they did not have any difficulty in locating the corpses of two dead cats which they subsequently bagged as evidence and took back to headquarters with them.

At 3 p.m. on that same afternoon McIntosh was summoned to a meeting with Headid, Mayor Randy Fredericksen, and city administrator Ted Cherry. At first he denied having killed Cleary and Bernard's cat but when pressed on the matter he finally fessed up and Cherry, to his credit, immediately fired him on the spot.

On May 15th, McIntosh was charged with killing Cleary and Bernard's cat and falsifying police records by Aaron J. Bates, deputy State's Attorney for Union County. (See Cat Defender post of June 14, 2019 entitled "A South Dakota Police Officer Is Unmasked, Fired, and Arrested for Shooting Cats but It Is Highly Unlikely That Either He Will Be Punished or That This Will Be the Last of These Illegal Executions.")

When his case finally came to trial on October 18th in the First Judicial Circuit Court of South Dakota in Elk Point, twenty-five kilometers northwest of North Sioux City, a jury took slightly over three hours in order to convict him of one count of killing Cleary and Bernard's cat, a class one misdemeanor in South Dakota, and one count of misconduct by a municipal officer, a class two misdemeanor. He was, however, acquitted on two charges of filing false police reports.

Earlier in the proceedings, presiding judge Kasey Sorensen had dismissed one count of falsifying public documents. (See the Sioux City Journal, October 21, 2019, "Ex-North Sioux (City) Officer Found Guilty of Shooting Cat.")

Judgment day for McIntosh came on November 1st but before Sorensen had time to pass sentencing his attorney, Richard Scott Rhinehart of Sioux City, moved to have his conviction set aside and a new trial scheduled because, in his view, the jury had been coerced into finding his client guilty. To put the matter succinctly, having failed to convince the panelists of his client's innocence, he reversed course and charged that Sorensen had attempted to starve them to death.

On that point the particulars are not in dispute. Voir dire began at 9 a.m. and then following a mid-day lunch break, testimony continued before wrapping up at 6 p.m. Rather than returning on a Saturday in order to deliberate McIntosh's fate, the jurors instead decided upon soldiering on and at 9:15 p.m. they returned their guilty verdict.

Noting that they had been served pizza for lunch and that at the end of their deliberations there were still slices left over, Sorensen wisely rejected Rhinehart's nonsensical motion. (See the Leader Courier of Elk Point, November 7, 2019, "McIntosh to Spend Thirty Days in Jail: Attorney Will Appeal.")

That momentary setback should not have caused either McIntosh or Rhinehart much in the way of angst because, as things eventually turned out, it was the only one that they were destined to receive from the ever-obliging Sorensen. She started out on the right foot, however, by giving McIntosh a good old-fashioned tongue-lashing.

"Simply because you were on duty does not absolve you of criminal liability," she thundered like Zeus from the bench according to the November 1st edition of the Sioux City Journal. (See "Ex-North Sioux (City) Officer Sentenced to Thirty Days in Jail for Killing Cat.")

Her highfalutin rhetoric was only for the consumption of fools and the naïve, however, and as soon as she had gotten that off of her malignant chest she turned around and proceeded to do just the opposite. Although under the law she could have given him a year in jail and fined him US$2,000 for stealing and killing Cleary and Bernard's cat, she instead gave him an insignificant month in the slammer and fined him a minuscule US$750. Not that it makes any real difference other than to hoodwink the public into falsely believing that the ends of justice had been served in some obscure fashion, she tacked on a thirty-day suspended sentence for his having engaged in official misconduct and placed him on probation for a year.

The only matters that she overlooked were to award him a medal, to order that a parade be held in his honor, and to commission a statue of him to be built in downtown North Sioux City. Most likely those omissions were simply oversights on her part and that she soon will get around to rectifying them.

Despite her willingness to bend over backwards in order to save the skin and career of a serial cat thief and murderer, Rhinehart returned the favor by giving her the spit in the eye that she so richly deserved, albeit for an entirely different set of reasons. The prosecution is "making a mountain out of a molehill" and it is "unthinkable" for McIntosh to go to jail, he bellowed to the Sioux City Journal.

Whereas it seems perfectly clear that he does not give so much as a hoot for the sanctity of all feline life, it would be interesting to know if he would apply that same brand of language to the Iowa Supreme Court's suspension of his license to practice law for sixty days back in 2013. (See Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v Richard Scott Rhinehart, decided February 15, 2013.)

In particular, the board found him guilty of, inter alia, perpetrating a forensic fraud upon a family court judge, engaging in fraud, deceit, dishonesty, and misrepresentation, engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, charging and collecting a clearly unreasonable fee, failure to maintain disputed fees in a trust account as required by law, and during his divorce he intentionally concealed from his wife and the court a number of contingent-fee cases that he was pursuing.

"As a consequence of his misconduct, the Patron Saint of Attorney Misfits sitting on the Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board punished him with a complimentary sixty-day suspension of his law license," is how that the watchdog group, The Committee to Expose Dishonest and Incompetent Judges, Attorneys and Public Officials, sarcastically summed up the corrupt practice of law in Iowa. (See www.noethics.net, an undated article entitled "Attorney Richard Rhinehart of Sioux City; Ethical Leprechaun.")

It thus would seem fair to conclude that McIntosh's retention of Rhinehart to represent him is a classic example of birds of a feather flocking together. They do, undeniably, make quite a pair.

Interspersed with his load of malarkey Rhinehart did, however, manage to come up with one thought-provoking argument. "He was ordered to take that cat out to the country and get rid of it," he swore to the Sioux City Journal in the November 1st article cited supra.

Whether or not McIntosh was specifically ordered by his superior officers at the NSCPD to shoot cats there can be little doubt that practically every member of North Sioux City's power elite knew what he was doing and that includes not only Stephanie and Andrew Ryan, who have admitted as much, but Headid, Sharkey, Cherry, and Fredericksen. Moreover as the area's receiving shelter, the SHS undoubtably knew that the NSCPD was killing cats the very moment that it stopped sending over any new arrivals. Staffers probably were even crying in their beer over the loss of that source of revenue.

Besides, there are very few secrets in small towns like North Sioux City and that goes double for police departments and courtrooms everywhere around the world. C'est-à-dire, practically everybody knows the intimate details of everyone's life including the scams that they have going, how much they drink, who that they are shacking up with, and how well or poorly their bladders are functioning on any given day.

Those individuals who reside in small towns are not necessarily morally superior to their counterparts in the big cities. It is only the distance afforded them by privilege, money, and class augmented by an outrageous hypocrisy and the ability to behave in a Janus-faced manner that provide them with the facade of being better people. In short, shit stinks everywhere but in a small town it smells to high heaven.

It therefore ultimately does not make much difference whether or not McIntosh was ordered to steal and kill cats. The mere fact that the NSCPD and, most likely, Fredericksen and Cherry as well knew what he was up to and did not fire him a long time ago makes them complicit in his crimes. The behavior of the NSCPD from top to bottom also proves conclusively once again that there is not any such thing as an honest and law-abiding cop.

Left to their own devices it is remotely conceivable that there could be a few honest and halfway decent cops but once they begin to look the other way and to not only cover up the crimes of their fellow officers but to perjure themselves in court as well they are no longer fit to wear badges and to carry guns. Upon assuming office they take an oath to uphold the law and accordingly their allegiance must be only to it and not to either the rotten apples in their departments or the politicians who sign their paychecks.

Richard Scott Rhinehart Once Had His License Suspended 

That petit fait never has been able to penetrate their thick craniums and as a result their polar star always has been anything and everything but the law. That in turn places all American cops in the same category as those that belong to Central American death squads.

Blood, sweat, and tears, three-ring circuses, and all sorts of other things are said to come in threes and that sometimes is also how that the law works as well. In this particular case, McIntosh's gross official misconduct and Rhinehart's attempt to absolve him of all guilt have been augmented by Sorensen's unconscionable hijacking of justice.

Anyone even remotely familiar with the litany of crimes that are perpetrated every day of the week against cats knows only too well that arrests of their abusers are about as rare as hens' teeth. Secondly, it is ever rarer for prosecutors to take such cases seriously even when arrests have been made and the incriminating evidence has been delivered to them upon silver platters.

Thirdly, even when cases actually go to trial juries seldom convict. That is especially the case when the defendants are cops. That in turn makes the verdict handed down by the members of the jury in Elk Point rather extraordinary and they are to be commended for their forthrightness and dedication to seeing to it that justice prevailed.

Therefore, for an old political hack like Sorensen to turn around and nullify their good work by setting McIntosh free is not only despicable but totally unpardonable to boot. If there were any justice in this world, she would be promptly kicked off the bench and sentenced to spend the next fifty years working on the chain gang.

Although theories of jurisprudence abound, all serious thinkers on the subject agree that justice is the linchpin upon which all legitimate legal systems turn. In this particular case, however, it is impossible to see how that any of the numerous cats that McIntosh stole and killed have received so much as an iota of justice.

The same most definitely can be said as well for Cleary and Bernard. Their cat was stolen from them and brutally murdered by McIntosh but his buddy Sorensen does not care about any of that.

Rather, the only thing that she cares about is maintaining her status as a solid and dependable good old girl within the corrupt-as-hell South Dakota legal establishment. In that regard, it is a sure bet that she tingles from head to toe with delight at her own cleverness as she sticks it to cats and their owners all the while dispensing protection and shelter to low-life, scumbags like McIntosh and other rogue police officers.

Her online biography states that she is a Black Hills' native who studied psychology, criminal justice, and political science at South Dakota State University in Brookings before being awarded a law degree from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 2007. All of that makes her living proof that when it comes to instilling any sense whatsoever of decency, compassion, morality, and justice in their graduates that America's degree mills are every bit as morally and intellectually bankrupt as the forty thieves who so bedeviled Ali Baba.

It additionally is suspected that she, like McIntosh, is a dog lover who factors that bias into her rulings from the bench. As most people realize, many fans of the canine species have little or no regard for either cats or their owners.

In fact, many of them get their perverted jollies by siccing their charges on cats and then laughing as they tear them apart. (See Cat Defender posts of September 22, 2019 and July 18, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Sparkle Is Killed on the Front Stoop of Her House by an Unleashed Dog in the Latest of Centuries-Old Deadly Attacks That Bear the Unmistakable Imprimatur of the House of Commons" and "A Blackpudlian Thrill Seeker Who Sicced Her Pit Bull on Regi and Then Laughed Off Her Fat Ass as He Tore Him Apart Receives a Customary Clean Bill of Health from the Courts.")

For example, on December 13th Sorensen awarded Elisabeth Maurus of Rock Island, Illinois, US$1,675 in restitution after her eleventh-month-old Bouvier des Flandres, Ned, died of a heatstroke after having been negligently left for twelve hours in a minivan owned by local dog trainer Christopher Railsback of Midwest Dog Training at 300 North Derby Lane in North Sioux City. By contrast, she did not give Cleary and Bernard so much as the time of day.

After a jury had found him guilty of misdemeanor animal neglect, Sorensen gave Railsback a sixty-day suspended jail sentence and fined him an additional US$500. Even though McIntosh's crimes against cats were both greater in number and intentional, as opposed to Railsback's offense having been a singular event and accidental, in Sorensen's perverted view of justice they merited only an additional US$250 in fines and thirty days in jail. (See the Sioux City Journal, December 16, 2019, "Judge Fines North Sioux City Trainer Convicted of Animal Neglect.")

Perhaps most detrimental of all, Sorensen's love letter to McIntosh is not destined to produce any positive effect on his future conduct. Au contraire, he will go on killing and abusing cats in either his capacity as a police officer or as a private citizen.

Furthermore, other than McIntosh no one employed by either the NSCPD or the city itself has been fired. Nothing therefore has really changed in North Sioux City and if the bloody corpses of cats with their brains blown out no longer litter the grounds of McCook that only means that the officers of the NSCPD have found a new and far more secure venue to serve as their cat killing fields.

For that, Sorensen is to be thanked. She thus has joined her colleagues McIntosh and Rhinehart as an integral member of a burlesque troupe known as the "Three Stooges of Justice." Perhaps billboards bearing their ugly mugs should be commissioned and an agent employed in order to secure gigs for them on the road. Their schtick is almost guaranteed to bring down the house wherever they perform.

As for McIntosh, he is planning to appeal the light, loving tap on the wrists given him by Sorensen. It therefore is questionable if he entered jail on November 18th as scheduled.

Thanks to the slipshod effort put forward by the local media, which hardly broke so much as a sweat covering this important case, it is not even been reported where he was to have served his sentence. Nonetheless, it very well could have been at none other than the North Sioux City Police Jail where he used to rule the roost as a grinning, sneering, and swaggering officer of the law who gunned down defenseless cats.

If so, that must have been a real hoot. It would have been like old home week as he graciously received the well-wishes, backslaps, high fives, and handshakes of his former officers. Perhaps Cherry and Fredericksen even stopped by in order to pay their respects.

Since none of the regular jailhouse slop that is served up to run-of-the-mill lawbreakers would ever do for such a distinguished guest of the city, all of his special dishes likely were lovingly prepared just for him. Smokes, beer and, possibly, even a whore or two were procured for his enjoyment.

A steady stream of police chiefs from nearby forces as well as a slew of private businessmen likely also stopped by in order to offer him jobs. It is unclear, however, if he will be expected to steal and shoot cats in his new sinecure.

As thoroughly corrupt to the core as it may be, North Sioux City is far from being the only city in the United "Bullshit" States of America where marauding, lawless gangs of scum-of-the-earth cops murder cats and, quite often, unarmed individuals with impunity. Although the lion's share of their abominably criminal behavior goes unreported by the equally sleazy and corrupt capitalistic media, such official misconduct is pretty much the norm from sea to shining sea.

For example, on November 11, 2011 Jonathan N. Snoddy of the Harrisonburg Police Department was summoned to Settlers Lane in order to attend to a forever nameless cat that had been run down and seriously injured by a hit-and-run motorist. Instead of procuring emergency veterinary assistance for it, he first attempted to bludgeon it to death with his night stick.

When that totally uncalled for brutality failed to produce the desired effect, he bashed its brains out against the side of a townhouse. So violent was the attack that the rockwork later had to be repaired. All totaled, local resident Wayne Meadows, who had telephoned the police, overheard Snoddy assault the defenseless cat at least twenty times.

Although he eventually was charged with animal cruelty, the entire political and legal establishment in Virginia quickly closed ranks behind him. As a result of the hard work and long hours put in on his behalf by Judge Steven Helvin, the mayor and city council of Harrisonburg, chiefs of police Donald Harper and Stephen Monticelli, prosecutors Marsha Garst, Cristobal Opp, and Kenneth Lee Alger III, as well as the Virginia State Bar, he not only beat the rap but was allowed to retain his job as well.

Even Daphna Nachminovitch of the cat-haters supreme at Virginia-based PETA rushed to his defense. (See Cat Defender posts of March 22, 2012, April 26, 2012, and August 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "In Another Outrageous Miscarriage of Justice, Rogue Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Is Let Off with a $50 Fine for Savagely Bludgeoning to Death an Injured Cat," "Virginia's Disreputable Legal and Political Establishment Is All Set to Acquit Jonathan N. Snoddy at His Retrial for Brutally Beating to Death an Injured Cat," and "Cat-Killing Cop Jonathan N. Snoddy Struts Out of Court as Free as a Bird Thanks to a Carefully Choreographed Charade Concocted by Virginia's Despicable and Dishonest Legal System.")

By comparison, the legal and political establishments in North Sioux City and South Dakota as a whole do not come off as looking all that shabbily. At least Cherry had the bon sens to belatedly fire McIntosh and unlike Snoddy his photograph was released to the public. Bates did prosecute him and he was forced to face a jury of his peers whereas Snoddy only had to put up with a brief hearing before a friendly judge. Reprehensibly, that old slug Sorensen voided all of their efforts by setting McIntosh scot-free.

With the deck stacked so heavily against them, there is little hope that Cleary and Bernard are going to be able to secure any measure of justice for either their murdered cat or themselves. Even so, it would be cathartic for them if they could somehow summon the will power and resources in order to at least bring civil lawsuits against Vanderpool for illegally trapping their cat and North Sioux City for McIntosh's crime. At the very least, they should demand that the NSCPD return their cat's remains so that they can provide it with a memorial service, a fitting burial, and a tombstone.

The utter moral depravity of all those involved in both the commission of this heinous crime as well as the absolution of those responsible for it is nowhere more vividly exemplified than in their steadfast refusal, unlike as with Ned, to even publicly identify Cleary and Bernard's cat. Without a name, a photograph, a history, and a personality it, like the one killed by Snoddy, has been relegated to the dustbin of history as being nothing more than just another nameless cat and, by extension, therefore unworthy of living in this world, receiving justice, and of even being remembered.

It is devoutly wished that all of them will one day meet with the same violent end that it did. If that should come to pass, it would be nothing less than what each and every one of them so richly deserves.

Photos: North Sioux City (McIntosh) and Rhinehart Law (Rhinehart).