A Beautiful Yellow and White Cat Is Brutally Slain and Then Put on Display in the Parking Lot of a Funeral Home in Johnson City but Absolutely Nobody Cares about Apprehending Its Killer, Least of All the Utterly Worthless Local Police

 

The Bloodied and Bound Cat Was Dumped at a Funeral Home

                         
"It was intentional. It's someone who bound this cat, abused it and killed it and then they (sic) left it where it would be found"
-- Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter

Upon returning to work at 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 18th, an unidentified employee of the Appalachian Funeral Home and Cremation Services at 800 East Wantagh Avenue in Johnson City, ninety-eight kilometers north of Asheville via Interstate 26, made a horrifying discovery. Lying in the firm's spacious parking lot was the mutilated and exsanguinated body of a beautiful longhaired yellow and white cat.

It had been stabbed multiple times and beaten about the head with a blunt object. Its back legs had been bound with duct tape but, oddly enough, not its front ones. Of course, it is always possible that they too had been originally restrained but that the tape was later removed by its killer.

The cat was lying in a pool of its own blood with a bloody screwdriver resting nearby. Tire tracks were clearly visible in the blood.

Presumably the employee promptly notified the authorities but even then it was not until more than an hour later at 2:05 p.m. that the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) and a representative of Animal Control arrived on the scene. As things eventually turned out, that proved to have been a harbinger of just how little regard that both agencies have for the sanctity of all feline life and, furthermore, proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that neither of them take the enforcement of the anti-cruelty statutes even remotely halfway-seriously.

Given that time is of the essence in such cases, if either agency had acted sooner it is just possible that the cat's killer could have been tracked down and swiftly apprehended. Owing to the testimony of the employee, it is known that the cat's body was not in the parking lot when he left work at 10:30 a.m.

That in turn means that the cat was dumped, and possibly even killed, sometime between then and 1 p.m. In other words, the killer's trail was anything but cold.

Once the good-for-nothing coppers did finally stir their lazy, rotten bones they wasted little time in not only making a complete hash of their already half-hearted investigation but they also added their very own customary brand of verbal pollution to the cold, crisp mountain air that is already contaminated by the coal-fired generators of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

"On the scene of (the) Appalachian Funeral Home, there were some tire tracks that had gone through the cat's blood and made an imprint on the pavement," Lieutenant Don Shepard told WJHL-TV of Johnson City on April 20th. (See "Local Animal Cruelty Investigations Continue Amid Community Outcry, Legislative Action.") "There was a screwdriver close by with blood on it. We have no idea if any of these are connected or not."

First of all, the cat's body, blood from the pavement, and the screwdriver should have been collected and bagged as evidence. Secondly, the screwdriver and the duct tape should have been dusted for fingerprints. Thirdly, photographs and, possibly, casts of the tire marks should have been taken and preserved.

"The initial observations from the Animal Control officer didn't dictate any puncture wounds or anything that would indicate the screwdriver was used," Shepard continued in his next breath  to WJHL-TV. "However a necropsy's been ordered for the animal -- hopefully (it) will take place next week -- that will shed some light on this case and show us what the cause of death is for this cat."

As best it could be determined, the results of that necropsy, if one was indeed performed, have not been made public. Presumably the blood on the cat and the pavement was its and a simple blood test would have confirmed not only that but also if that on the screwdriver also belonged to it. 

Also, if the screwdriver was indeed the murder weapon, a forensic test more than likely would have found bits and pieces of the cat's flesh and fur on it. Even if it had been wiped clean of all evidence, any halfway competent forensic pathologist surely would have been able to have quickly determined if it had been used to stab the cat to death by comparing it with the puncture wounds inflicted upon the victim.

Determining exactly how that the cat was killed is of secondary importance, however, when compared to the pressing task of apprehending its killer and in that regard the JCPD's lack of initiative has been nothing short of disgraceful. "We're hopeful that we can get some video or somebody in the community has some video or has some knowledge that can help us and assist us in determining who's at fault," Shepard mindlessly caroled to WJHL-TV a day earlier on April 19th. (See "Johnson City Police Ask for Public's Help in Cat Killing Investigation.")  "We're just hopeful that the community will reach out to us if anybody knows anything that will help us determine or holding someone responsible for this cruel act to an animal."

If the circumstances were not so tragic, Shepard's sottise would be laughable. First of all, hope does not solve criminal cases; that worthy objective can only be achieved through expert and dedicated detective work.

Secondly, no cop would ever have the chutzpah to call upon the public to solve homicide cases and the same guiding principle applies to those involving animal cruelty. Besides, neither the police on Staten Island nor those in Minneapolis ever asked for the public's help in investigating their murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd.

Regrettably, Shepard is far from being the only four-flusher in Johnson City. "We have the screwdriver...the police took the tape off the cat's leg (sic) and the funeral home is going though surveillance video," Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter gratuitously pointed out to the Johnson City Press on April 19th. (See "Cat Found Bound, Stabbed to Death in Funeral Home Parking Lot.") "We're working closely with the JCPD and the funeral home. It's a very active investigation."

Ha! That is quite a hoot in that not so much as a solitary syllable has appeared in the local press in the nearly seven weeks that have passed since the cat was murdered. Quite obviously, both Shepard and Davis are fully cognizant of just how little regard that residents have for cats and how horribly that they are mistreated in Johnson City. Consequently, they know that they can get away with sitting on their fat, lazy asses and substituting cruel public posturing for honest police work.

Even their palaver concerning surveillance video is most likely disingenuous as well. First of all, the funeral home not only is set back from the road but it also has a rather spacious parking lot.

It is difficult to tell from photographs of it found online, but its surveillance cameras most likely only monitor the entrances and windows of it and therefore do not reach very far into the recesses of the parking lot itself. Secondly, even under the best of circumstances most surveillance footage is of such a poor quality as to make it almost worthless. Besides, since even most burglars possess enough bon sens in order to cover their faces and heads, one could hardly expect an ailurophobe to be any less cautious.

Thirdly, there does not appear to be any residences and commercial establishments located even remotely close to it and that in all likelihood precludes the possibility of anyone having seen in person or captured on film any images of the culprit. C'est-à-dire, the JCPD, Animal Control, and the shelter are merely gassing about surveillance footage in order to hoodwink the public into falsely believing that they are stirring so much as a lousy finger in their supposed search for the cat's killer.

For whatever it is worth, WJHL-TV initially reported on April 18th that a green, four-door truck with a camper on top was the last vehicle to have been spotted in the parking lot. (See "Cat Found Dead with Bound Paws, Multiple Stab Wounds; Johnson City Police Department Searching for Suspects.")

Inexcusably, the television station has failed to disclose when the truck was spotted and by whom. It therefore is impossible to determine the relevancy of that tidbit of information.

Suffice it to say there is not anything in the public record to indicate that the JCPD has bothered to either comb the city of only sixty-seven-thousand residents for a vehicle fitting that description or to at the very least issue an all points bulletin for it. Likewise, it apparently has been far too bone-lazy in order to even touch bases with either the local department of motor vehicles or automobile dealerships in reference to such a vehicle.

Most unforgivable of all, the JCPD, Animal Control, the shelter, and the local capitalistic media have relegated the victim of this heinous crime to the status of a non-entity. Most notably, none of them have been willing to even so much as to publicly speculate on either its sex or age.

A Bloody Screwdriver Was Found Nearby

Secondly, they have not disclosed if it had been sterilized or carried any form of identification with it, such as either an implanted microchip or a tattoo. Even more pertinently, has anyone even bothered to check? It is superfluous to point out but microchips, tattoos, and sterilizations can be traced.

Thirdly, its fur should have been combed for the presence of fibers and other microscopic evidence that could have been traced back to its killer, his truck, and place of residence. Fourthly, anyone even halfway serious about apprehending its killer would not only have checked with the local shelter, but also with veterinarians, pet shops, online adoption services, breeders, and the managers of any TNR colonies in the area.

Fifthly, the police should have reached out to all cat owners in order to determine if any of them had ever come across the cat. It is even remotely possible that one of them might remember either giving  away or selling a longhaired yellow and white kitten to its subsequent killer.

If all of those endeavors had failed to have borne fruit, the police should have expanded their inquiries to the neighboring cities of Bristol, forty kilometers north of Johnson City, and to Kingsport, thirty-seven kilometers northwest of Johnson City. It even could have extended its search across the border into Bristol, Virginia.    

With one-hundred-forty-nine uniformed officers and twenty-six civilian employees at its disposal, it is indisputable that the JCPD had more than sufficient manpower, money, and resources in order to have solved this case long ago. The reason that it has not done so is to be found in the petit fait that it, like most forces everywhere, hates cats, their owners, and supporters.

That is so much the case that the police find it all but impossible not to join in the killing sprees themselves. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2008, September 16, 2009, September 22, 2011, August 22, 2012, September 27, 2014, June 18, 2015, July 2, 2015, September 1, 2016, and January 2, 2020 entitled, respectively, "A Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes a Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo," "Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, the Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey," "The Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," "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," "Falsely Branded as Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun," "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover Up Their Heinous Crime," "After Allowing One of Their Dogs to Maul McGuire to Within an Inch of His Life, the Toronto Police Do Not Have Even the Common Decency to Summon Veterinary Help for Him," "The Legal and Political Establishment in a Small Pennsylvania Backwater Closes Ranks and Pulls Out All the Stops in Order to Save the Job and Liberty of the Bloodthirsty Cop Who Murdered Sugar," and "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," plus The Orange County Register of Anaheim, August 23, 2017, "Police Are Shooting a Shocking Number of  People's Pets.") 

Furthermore, it is not only domestic cats that they prey upon with impunity but cops start frothing at the mouth every time that they are able to get tigers, lions and cougars in their sights. (See Cat Defender posts of January 28, 2008, May 5, 2008, and November 3, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Hopped Up on Vodka and Pot, a Trio of Miscreants Taunted Tatiana Prior to the Attack That Led to Her Being Killed by the San Francisco Police," "Chicago's Rambo-Style Cops Corner and Execute a Cougar to the Delight of the Hoi Polloi and the Capitalist Media," and "Sheriff Matt Lutz Settles an Old Score by Staging a Great Safari Hunt That Claims the Lives of Eighteen Tigers and Seventeen Lions in Zanesville.")

Cops also sometimes even refuse to arrest individuals who have been caught flagrante delicto abusing and killing kittens and cats. (See Cat Defender post of July 3, 2006 entitled "Crooked Massachusetts Cops Allow
an Elderly Politician to Get Away with Attempting to Drown a Kitten Named Lucky Girl.")

They additionally are so contemptuous of both cats and their owners that they categorically refuse to arrest feline abusers and killers even when their owners have gone to both great trouble and expense in order to do their jobs for them. (See Cat Defender posts of April 2, 2015 and December 18, 2018 entitled, respectively, "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" and "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," plus The Mirror of London, articles dated September 20, 2018 and May 21, 2021 and entitled, respectively, "Croydon Cat Killer Does Not Exist Say Police a They Close the Investigation after Five-Hundred Deaths" and "Pet Owners Think 'Croydon Cat Killer' Is Back after Another Feline Slain and Mutilated.")

As simply god-awful as all of that is, the lion's share of their dirty work is not done by uniformed officers but rather by those cops that they designate as Animal Control officers. In particular, one of their more common tactics is to illegally trap cats and then shoot them in the field.

As a result, these extra-judicial killings go unreported and their victims are not even counted in the falsified statistics that shelters routinely pass off to a gullible and uncaring public as the gospel truth. (See Cat Defender post of August 31, 2006 entitled "An Animal Control Officer Goes on a Drunken Binge and Leaves Four Cats and a Dog to Die of Thirst, Hunger, and Heat at a Massachusetts Shelter," plus WPEC-TV of West Palm Beach, March 6, 2012, "Port Lucie Family Cat (Pumpkin) Caught in Feral Cat Roundup, Euthanized," The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, June 11, 2013, "North Ridgeville Clears Humane Officer of Wrongdoing for Killing Feral Kittens (the Woodpile Five) but Animal Groups Want Action," WTSP-TV of Tampa, articles dated July 10, 2013 and July 12, 2013 and entitled, respectively, "Pasco County  Kills Family Cat (Peggy) Before It Arrives at Shelter" and "Pasco Investigates Lethal Injection of Family Cat," and Metro Canada of Toronto, September 6, 2013, "Runaway Cat (Snuffy) Euthanized Without Owner's Consent over Cold-Like Symptoms.")

Given the myriad of despicable crimes that they commit every day against other people's cats and those that are homeless it is anything but surprising that cops themselves make lousy guardians as well. (See Cat Defender posts of May 29, 2007 and March 18, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Corporal Cuffs, a Beloved Station House Mascot, Is Abducted Right Underneath the Noses of the Philadelphia Police" and "Eco, Who for Years Was a Mainstay at a Small Massachusetts Police Department, Is Run Down and Killed by a Motorist.")

Cops serve two primary functions in society. First of all, they are the hired guns of the money men and their flunkies (the politicians, bureaucrats, the capitalistic media, the professors, and religious groups). To put the matter another way, they serve as the warlords' death squads.

Secondly, being not only criminal but insatiably greedy and power hungry as well, they get ahead in this dog-eat-dog world by crapping all over cats and other animals, the poor, and all beings that are incapable of defending themselves. After all, they are not about to arrest those who pay their fat salaries no matter how many crimes that they commit.

Their employers likewise are only too willing to return the favor by overlooking the myriad of crimes that they commit against totally innocent animals and individuals. With that being the case, reforming the fascistic police and the corrupt-as-hell judicial system of which they are an integral part is an utter impossibility.

Most individuals therefore are left with the choice of either leaving the United States or avoiding the police at all costs. Cat owners must bear the additional burden of keeping their beloved companions out of their reach.

"...ninety-nine per cent of them have chips on their shoulders," is how that councilor Cornish summed up the matter in Margery Allingham's 1962 novel, The China Governess. "Since I don't want my affairs dealt with by chaps who feel like that if I can possibly help it, I keep away from the police as much as I can."

Compounding an already dreadful situation, so-called animal protection groups are not much of an improvement over cops and Animal Control officers. For instance, in the United States the numerous SPCAs never have been known to take cruelty to cats even remotely seriously.

The phony-baloney Humane Society of the United States in Washington is an even worse defamer, betrayer, and killer of cats. (See Cat Defender posts of April 28, 2009, November 20, 2009, and February 24, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Quislings at the Humane Society of the United States Sell Out San Nicolas's Cats to the Assassins at the Diabolical United States Fish and Wildlife Service," "Memo to the Humane Society of the United States: Tell the World How Many Cats You and Your Honeys at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Have Murdered on San Nicolas Island," and "The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Humane Society of the United States Hoist a Glass in Celebration of Their Extermination of the Cats on San Nicolas Island.")

In England, the RSPCA in all likelihood kills far more cats than it ever saves. (See Cat Defender posts of June 5, 2007 and October 23, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The RSPCA's Unlawful Seizure and Senseless Killing of Mork Leaves His Sister, Mindy, Brokenhearted and His Caretakers Devastated" and "The RSPCA Steals and Executes Nightshift Who Was His Elderly Caretaker's Last Surviving Link to Her Dead Husband," plus the Daily Mail, articles dated December 20, 2012, November 6, 2014, and March 28, 2016 and entitled, respectively, "Revealed: RSPCA Destroys Half of the Animals That It Rescues -- Yet Thousands Are Completely Healthy," "RSPCA Forced to Apologize for Wrongly Putting Down Cat Belonging to Family It Accused of Cruelty in Bungled Prosecution," and "RSPCA Killed a Cat Having Long Hair -- then Tried to Prosecute Its Owners for Cruelty," The Independent of London, March 29, 2016 editorial, "After Forcing Family to Have Their Cat Put Down, the RSPCA Needs to Rethink Its Priorities," The Chronicle of Chester. August 11, 2016, "Distraught Saltney Family Blast (sic) RSPCA after Their Cat Was Put Down," and Kent Online, August 13, 2016, "Heartbreak for Larkfield Family after Cat Is Put to Sleep Without Their Knowledge.")

In Johnson City, not so much as a solitary peep has been heard out of the Humane Society of Washington County, located at 2101 West Walnut Street, regarding the cat's murder. With its uncaring attitude, it is a foregone conclusion that it is not about to pressure the JCPD into acting.

The most miserable rotter in the animal protection woodpile is sans doute PETA in Norfolk. "This cat should have been safe indoors with a loving family and instead endured a terrifying and agonizing death at the hands of someone who must be caught before hurting anyone else," the fraudsters' Colleen O'Brien blew long and hard to the Bristol Courier Herald on April 22nd. (See "PETA Offers Reward for Information 
About Torture, Death of Cat in Johnson City.")

Quite obviously, PETA does not have any way of knowing that the cat was homeless. In fact, unless the killer trapped it, the most logical conclusion would be that he either owned or stole it. Moreover, PETA is merely labeling it as homeless so that it can agitate for the American Bird Conservancy in The Plains, Virginia, and its perverse cats indoors agenda.

As far as its offer of a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of its killer is concerned, that is the same dishonest public relations' ploy that it engages in every time that a cat is either abused or killed. Not only has the organization never been known to have spent so much as a sou investigating cases of cruelty to cats but it is a good bet that it never has parted with any of its reward money.

In other words, its offer is strictly beau geste. Such outrageous capitalizing upon the murder of a cat does, however, present the big phonies with yet still another golden opportunity in order to defame all cats, especially those that are homeless, their supporters, and TNR. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2017  entitled "The Brutal Murders of a Trio of Atlantic City's Boardwalk Cats Provide an Occasion for the Local Rag and PETA to Whoop It Up and to Break Open the Champagne.")

The Funeral Home's Parking Lot Is to the Side and Rear

Much more importantly, PETA has a long history of stealing cats not only off the street but from private residences as well and then killing them. Even more egregiously, it is allowed by the courts to get away scot-free with its multitude of despicable crimes. (See Cat Defender posts of January 29, 2007, February 9, 2007, and October 7, 2011 entitled, respectively, "PETA's Long History of Killing Cats and Dogs Is Finally Exposed in a North Carolina Courtroom," "The Verdict in the PETA Trial: Littering Is a Crime but Not the Mass Slaughter of Innocent Cats and Dogs," and "PETA Traps and Kills a Cat and Then Shamelessly Goes Online in Order to Brag about Its Criminal and Foul Deed.")

Furthermore, the organization's founder, Ingrid Newkirk, routinely boasts of the huge number of cats and dogs that she personally dispatched to the devil when she was operating a shelter in Washington. To hear her tell it, that was the most fun that she has ever had in her miserable, god-rotten life. (See The New Yorker, April 14, 2003, "The Extremist: The Woman Behind the Most Successful Radical Group in America.")

Even when it is not actually doing its own dirty work, the organization's Lindsay Pollard-Post cools her heels by exhorting the public to bring all unwanted and homeless cats to shelters so that they can be expeditiously killed. (See the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, August 4, 2008, "Prevent Rabies: Help Reduce Feral Cat Problem.")

Being far too lazy and stingy in order to shelter, feed, medicate, and to find homes for the cats that it steals off the street and is given by other shelters, PETA annually kills around ninety-five per cent of those that it impounds at its shelter in Norfolk. Best of all as far as it is concerned, doing so is dirt cheap.

For instance, in a November 13, 2010 letter addressed to politician Chuck Svokas of Hancock County in West Virginia, the organization's Teresa Chagrin boasted that a two-hundred-milliliter bottle of sodium pentobarbital was more than sufficient in order to do away with eighty-three cats. (See the News-Register of Wheeling, December 16, 2010, "PETA Peeved at Hancock County's Feral Cat Problem.") 

When it comes to all other animals, however, PETA is all milk and honey. "No animal should be killed for doing that (simply trying to provide for its family and to survive)," the organization's Kristen Simon declared to The San Diego Union-Tribune on September 17, 2014. (See "City Aims to Kill Feral Pigs.")

It thus is perfectly clear that PETA simply hates cats. In spite of that and its criminal activities, the organization remains to this very day a darling of the capitalistic media and that in turn exposes the latter's patented dishonesty and anti-cat bias.

In addition to the steadfast refusal of the police and animal protection groups to track down and arrest feline abusers and killers, prosecutors rarely go after those few individuals that are actually apprehended with anything other than wet noodles. Worst still, judges refuse to punish that even smaller class of abusers who are actually convicted by juries and in bench trials. (See Cat Defender posts of January 17, 2006, August 21, 2008, November 24, 2008, May 14, 2009, December 18, 2009, April 24, 2010, March 9, 2012, March 13, 2012, January 10, 2014, July 18, 2015, and November 18, 2015 entitled, respectively, "A Loony Virginia Judge Lets a Career Criminal Go Free After He Stomps to Death Fourteen-Year-Old Arthritic Luke," "Justice Denied: An Exterminator Who Gassed Three Cats at the Behest of Fox-35 in Richmond Gets Off with a Minuscule Fine," "Kilo's Killer Walks in a Lark but the Joke Is on the Disgraceful English Judicial System," "Virginia Is for Cat Killers, Not Lovers, Now That Its Legal Establishment Has Sanctioned Donald Curtis Hunt's Drowning of Five Kittens," "A Teenage Wino Who Gunned Down Her Neighbor's Cat, Trouble, with a Crossbow from Her Bedroom Window Cheats Justice," "Holly Crawford Hits the Jackpot by Drawing a Judge Who Simply Adores Kitten Mutilators and Dope Addicts," "The Lunatic Rulings in the Cats With No Name Cruelty Cases Prove Once Again That Pennsylvania Is a Safe Haven for Cat Killers and Junkies," "An Amateur Ornithologist Guns Down Hartley with an Air Rifle, Feigns Remorse, and Then Cheats Justice by Begging and Lying," "The Sick Wife Defense Works Like a Charm for Cunning Patrick Doyle after He Traps a Cat and Then Shoot It with an Air Rifle While Still in Its Cage," "A Texas Judge Idiotically Allows Pastor Rick Bartlett to Get Away with Stealing and Killing Moody but a Civil Court May Yet Hold Him Accountable," "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," and "A Cruel Teenage Drunkard and Dope Addict Who Bound a Cat and a Dog with Tape Before Killing Them Is Let Off Easy by a Calgary Court.")

A bill currently wending its way through the Tennessee legislature in Nashville will supposedly make it somewhat easier for prosecutors to obtain convictions for aggravated animal cruelty by removing from the current law the burden of requiring them to prove that the defendant had acted in a "depraved and sadistic manner." In short, that would eliminate the need for psychological analysis.

"In a court of law, to prove someone was depraved or sadistic in an act they carried out, requires a much more difficult burden for those prosecutors," Republican Senator Jon Lundberg of Bristol, sponsor of the bill, explained to WJHL-TV in the April 20th article cited supra. "When we take that out, say if your actions led to drowning an animal. And you purposefully intended to drown an animal, to burn an animal, to crush an animal, deprive them (sic) of food or water, that is aggravated animal cruelty."

Shelter director Davis has been quick to voice her wholehearted support for the bill. "That would definitely work in favor of the police department and in favor of Animal Control," she chipped in to WJHL-TV. "It will make it a little bit easier, hopefully, to be able to convict people of aggravated animal cruelty, instead of just animal cruelty in these types of cases."

Just like the JCPD, both Lundberg and Davis are blowing smoke. Most obviously, unless the police and animal protection groups can somehow be prevailed upon to actually investigate cases of cruelty to cats and to make arrests it is not going to make one whit of difference whatsoever how many laws that the politicians pass in Nashville or anywhere else for that matter.

The same holds true for prosecutors who will not prosecute and judges who will not jail offenders. Moreover, if Tennesseeans really cared about the well-being of cats and other animals they not only would stop swallowing hook, line, and sinker the blatant lies disseminated so freely by the JCPD, Davis, Lundberg, and others but they also would demand that all shelters be transformed into no-kill facilities.

None of that is about to happen, however, and that in turn makes it imperative that those who care about cats form their own nationwide organization to investigate crimes committed against the species. Even doing that much, however, will not begin to address the dilemma of what to do about derelict prosecutors and judges.

As far as a motive is concerned, it is conceivable that the killer in this case was repaying a vendetta against the funeral home. For its part, however, the establishment has been extremely tight-lipped.

"The incident involving animal cruelty discovered yesterday in the funeral home parking lot is very disturbing," its David Mathes told WJHL-TV in the April 19th article cited supra. "This investigation is in its early stages and, although we are withholding any public comment at this time, we are very concerned and prepared to assist the authorities in any way we can to help identify those person(s) responsible for this abusive act."

Once she had finished sucking up and demonstrating that she is a bona fide team player, old Davis finally stumbled her way into saying something that ultimately could prove to be very important. "It was intentional," she declared to the Johnson City Press. "It's someone who bound this cat, abused it and killed it and then they (sic) left it where it would be found."

Although wildlife biologists and gardeners have been known to trap and kill other people's cats, it is precisely ornithologists, both professionals and amateurs, who are renowned for doing not only that but they also are unable to resist the urge to publicly flaunt their crimes and cleverness. Some of them even have been known to taunt their victims' owners with threatening letters. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2006, November 17, 2007, August 7, 2008, August 17, 2011, January 6, 2011, and May 13, 2013 entitled, respectively, "A Collar Saves Turbo from Extermination after He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths," "A Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts," "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton," "Crime Pays! Having Made Fools Out of Galveston Prosecutors, Serial Cat-Killer James Munn Stevenson Is Now a Hero and Laughing All the Way to the Bank," "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Cat Killer," "Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning," and "Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society Issue a Call for Cats to Be Poisoned with Tylenol® and Then Try to Lie Out of It.") 

Ornithologists also are strongly suspected in the abduction and beheading of a beautiful three-year-old gray Norwegian Forest Cat and British Shorthair-mix named Runa on November 17, 2017 in Oberrohrdorf, thirty kilometers northwest of Zurich. Her body, but not her head, was  later dumped in the garden of her horrified and heartbroken owner, Jordana Rebmann. (See Cat Defender posts of December 8, 2017 and February 28, 2018 entitled, respectively, "The Abduction, Brutal Slaying, and Diabolical Mutilation of Runa Leaves Her Owner Devastated and Strikes Fear into the Hearts of All Cat Lovers in a Small Town in Switzerland" and "The Hunt for Runa's Sadistic Killer Takes an Unexpected and Bizarre Turn but, Owing to the Polizei's Refusal to Take This Case Seriously, an Arrest Remains a Long Shot.")

Regardless of who the culprit may be in Johnson City, there can be little doubt that he hates cats with a passion and that he went out of his way in order to inflict as much pain and suffering on his victim as possible. Secondly, by dumping the cat's body in public view he additionally forced everybody in town to experience his animus.  

Thirdly, he has thrown down the gauntlet to the JCPD as well as to all of Johnson City by daring them to catch him and all of that is in keeping with the modus operandi of ornithologists. By way of response, the JCPD is yet to even get in the game and its intransigence has sullied forever its and Johnson City's reputation.

None of that in any way eliminates the possibility that the killer could be a monster who tortures and kills cats for the pleasure of doing so. If that should prove to be the case, he likely will strike again and his next victim could be either another cat or possibly even a human.

As far as the victim is concerned, its remains likely have been refrigerated but since the police do not have any intention of working this case, they likely soon will be either thrown out in the trash or burned. There will no be any memorial service for it and it most definitely will not be given either a proper burial or a tombstone.

In reality, the fact that it ever so much as existed along with how horribly that it was made to suffer before finally being robbed of its precious existence already has been forgotten by all of Johnson City and that in many respects is an even worse offense than what its killer did to it.

The residents of the city are sound sleepers to be sure but they would be unwise to confound their uninterrupted repose with a clean conscience. Rather, they should take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves why it is that they are so morally numb to this cat's horrific suffering and brutal murder.

Photos: Lady Freethinker of Santa Monica (the cat lying in the street), the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter (a close-up of the cat and the screwdriver), and Facebook (the entrance of the funeral home).