Bird Lover and Music Industry Icon Philip Gregory Tripp, Who Stole and Drowned Mango and Then Went on Facebook in Order to Sarcastically Brag about His Cleverness, Is Treated Like a Hero by a Court in Coffs Harbour

Frightened Little Mango Moments Before She Was Drowned by Tripp

"It's horrible to imagine the terror, desperation and suffering of its last moments of life. The owners are devastated and traumatized."
-- J. Hickson of change.org 

Bird advocates have recorded another crushing victory in their all-out, no-holds-barred war against cats and their supporters. Specifically, another cat has been stolen and cruelly executed while its killer has been let off practically scot-free by the courts.

The always true to form capitalistic media has likewise chosen to totally ignore not only the cat's suffering but the pain inflicted upon her heartbroken owners. Stealing and killing cats thus has become the perfect crime and birders are positively salivating over the license bestowed upon them by the robed buffoons who masquerade as dispensers of justice in courts all around the world.

This time around the culprit is seventy-one-year-old Philip Gregory Tripp of King Street in Coffs Harbour, five-hundred-forty kilometers north of Sydney in New South Wales, who on Thursday, July 22nd trapped a beautiful ginger and white female named Mango that belonged to one of his neighbors and then drowned her, while still caged, in a garbage can. Absolutely no one, least of all her aggrieved owners, ever would have known what had become of her if Tripp had not had the audacity to venture onto Facebook in order to not only post a photograph of her but also to brag about his cleverness and devilry.

He quite obviously was expecting a huge pat on the back and, possibly, even a hero's welcome from his many like-minded supporters around the world and he doubtlessly has received exactly that, at least in private.

       
"The first feral cat of the season. Saw it on one of my video cams last night, baited the trap with a small can of dine (presumably Dine cat food), woke up this morning to meowing," he wasted no time in writing July 22nd on Facebook. "Filling the green wheelie bin with water so I can give it (a) swimming lesson and mercifully euthanize it in fifteen seconds in the sinking cat trap."

Even without his public admission of being a longtime serial cat thief and killer, his possession of the surveillance cameras, a supply of cat food, a cage, a trash can filled with water, and a water hose should have been more than sufficient in order for the authorities, in the unlikely event that they would have been so inclined, to have arrested him. In addition to being a skilled thief and killer, his own words expose him as being a man who quite obviously derives unbridled joy out of the commission of his heinous crimes.

For example, his sarcastic remark about giving Mango a "swimming lesson" reveals not only the depth of his hatred for her but also demonstrates the bitter contempt that he harbors in his black heart for the entire species. Furthermore, anyone who would ever so much as dare to proclaim that being drowned while helplessly trapped in a cage constitutes a merciful euthanization is an unabashed sadist who gets high off of torturing defenseless cats.

Officers from the Coffs-Clarence Police District of the New South Wales Police were alerted to Tripp's post on Facebook by a member of the public, most likely Mango's unidentified owners who had fly-posted the neighborhood in a futile search for her, and subsequently arrested him at his home on that same day. Deplorably, he was immediately released on bail.

Being the clever chap that he is, Tripp immediately realized that his killing spree was at an end, at least for the time being, and therefore he pleaded guilty on Monday, July 26th. He then promptly launched into his much-practiced charm and public relations' offensive.

"The matter will be decided in court and I do not plan to contest the charge nor exact any expense from the justice system," he pledged shortly after his arrest according to the October 26th edition of The Industry Observer of Chiswick, a suburb of Sydney. (See "Former SXSW Representative Phil Tripp Will Lose Companion Parrot Following Animal Cruelty Case.") "I have liaised with the (Australian) RSPCA and made an extensive statement to the police who treated me fairly and with care in charging me."

 

That is not the least bit surprising considering that he is a big shot not only down under but in Austin as well. In particular, for more than seventeen years he served as the representative for AustralAsia and Hawaii to the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival which is held each March in Austin and attracts up to thirty-thousand fans. In other words, he is a well-known big shaker within the popular music industry in both Australia and the United States.

 

Much more importantly, he is a skilled dissembler who excels in both lying and bullshitting people around. "I should man up, own this and face the music," he added to The Industry Observer.

Tripp Flaunted His Utter Contempt for Mango on Facebook

No sooner had those sentiments gushed from his malignant maw than he turned around and went out and retained the services of veteran Coffs Harbour attorney Hugh Schleiger in order to do just the opposite by helping him to beat the charges filed against him. For his part, Schleiger has the chutzpah to claim on his web site that he is a disciple of Aristotle and a subscriber to his dicta that "law is order, and good law is order."

In Mango's corner was the Animal Justice Party (AJP) which was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Sydney. It periodically fields candidates to run in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, and the Northern Territories but so far none of them have been able to garner more than one to two per cent of the vote.

The party did, however, call for Tripp to be given the maximum sentence allowable under law but even then that would have been only five years in prison. To their credit, members Joan Lloyd and Gail McDonald cared enough about Mango and her family in order to protest outside the Coffs Harbour Court House where the trial was eventually held.

J. Hickson, presumably a private citizen, started a petition July 23rd on change.org demanding that Tripp be given the maximum jail time, the maximum fine, and that he be banned for life from owning any pets. So far the petition, which is still open, has collected thirty-eight-thousand, three-hundred-twenty-one signatures. (See "Tortured, Drowned in (a) Garbage Bin and Mounted on a Sign.") 

"This cat was not feral but a pet," Hickson wrote on change.org. "It was trusting and affectionate towards its abuser before he trapped, tortured, and drowned it."

 

That last statement is a bit tricky to interpret but it strongly implies that Tripp not only had a prior relationship with Mango but that he had in fact deliberately lured her into his garden and into his death trap. If so, it is entirely conceivable that he could have been putting out food for her and other cats for an extended period of time.

After all, it is indisputable that he is an old hand when it comes to stealing and killing cats. "He did the same to another pet cat and then mounted its dead body on a sign on his property visible to the public and posted the image on Facebook," Hickson continued. "This man is a repeat offender and has, allegedly, done the same thing on at least several occasions, proudly boasting about his actions on social media."

Based upon all of that, Hickson then drew the inescapable conclusion. "These are the actions of a cruel psychotic who seeks to justify and publicize his desire to torture and kill," she wrote.

It is not known what position, if any, that the Australian RSPCA took but it sure looks like Tripp co-opted the organization early on and took it completely out of the game. If so, he need not have bothered because when it comes to protecting animals it is about as worthless as a bumbershoot in a hurricane. (See Cat Defender post of April 22, 2008 entitled "The Australian RSPCA Sells Out by Readily Agreeing to Gun Down Charles Sturt's Defenseless 'Rock' Cats.")

So, with the legal battle lines now drawn between a darling of the capitalistic media with money to burn and represented by a skilled practitioner of the ancient art of lying, fibbing, and distorting the truth on the one hand versus Mango's owners, the AJP, and Hickson on the other hand, the outcome of this case was hardly ever in doubt, especially considering that the trial was being held in the number one cat hating and killing country in the world. Nevertheless, for the sake of appearances a trial of sorts had to be staged and therefore the semblance of one did take place October 25th in Coffs Harbour District Court with magistrate Ian Rodgers presiding.

In his 1906 seminal work, The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines a liar as a "lawyer with a roving commission" and in that regard it certainly did not take Old Schleiger long in order to pay homage to his perspicacity. Every bit as astounding, he found a more than willing recipient for his sophistry in none other than Rodgers.

"You put a quart of good grape inside the old judge and he will believe anything," Damon Runyon said of Judge Henry G. Blake in his famous 1929 short-story, "Madame la Gimp." The only difference between Rodgers and Blake is that in the case of the former Schleiger was spared the expense of the "good grape."

He therefore opened his spirited defense of Tripp by reminding Rodgers that he was sitting in judgment of a man who had had an "illustrious career" in the pet and music industries. C'est-à-dire, he was dealing with a superstar and therefore had better tread easily on him. 

Tripp Has Supposedly Lost Temporary Custody of His Parrot

Following that opening salvo, he outrageously told the court that his client was "deeply remorseful" about what he had done to Mango. While it is true that Tripp had earlier told the The Industry Observer that he felt "contrition, shame, and guilt," prosecutor Heidi Warren quickly demonstrated that she most definitely had not been pulling on the jug.

"The contrition and remorse, in my submission, is being caught and being embarrassed in the community," she told the court according to the Australian Broadcasting Company's (ABC) October 25th account of the proceedings. (See "Animal Lover Philip Tripp Will Lose Companion Parrot after Drowning Cat in Garbage Bin.") As things eventually turned out, that constituted the first and last intelligent and honest utterance to be heard during the entire trial.

Schleiger next attempted to pass off Tripp as an animal lover. "The paradox is that he's been an animal lover all of his life and he has a parrot, which is his companion," he told the court according to the ABC.

As any simpleton is acutely aware, some so-called animal lovers champion the cause of certain species while simultaneously defaming and eradicating others en masse. That is known as speciesism and it is the bread and butter of ornithologists, amateurs like Tripp as well as professionals, everywhere. (See Cat Defender post of March 15, 2007 entitled "The Connecticut Audubon Society Shows Its True Colors by Calling for the Slaughter of Feral Cats, Mute Swans, Mallards, Canada Geese, and Deer.")

Therefore, for Schleiger to claim that Tripp is entitled to steal and kill cats because he is a so-called animal lover is tantamount to turning all morality, logic, and law on their heads. Yet, Old Rodgers fell for his sottise hook, line, and sinker. 

"That seems to fly in the face completely of a crime of this nature," he idiotically retorted according to the ABC. He then went on to add that it was "perplexing" that Tripp had committed such an "horrific" act given his background.

Au contraire, that which is ironic is that anyone who professed to be a bird lover would have anything to do with rock music in that some of its top acts are not only notorious animal abusers but especially cruel to birds. For example, Alice Cooper is alleged to have killed a chicken on stage during one of his early shows.

Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath not only bit off the head of a bat during a performance in Des Moines on January 20, 1982 but he also allegedly bit off the heads of a pair of doves during a meeting with record company executives. He additionally has been accused of snorting ants.

There is quite obviously something seriously wrong with rich people who eat bad food. Why, even those individuals who dine out of trash cans have more refined culinary tastes than the likes of Cooper and Osbourne. (See The Washington Post, January 23, 2009, "Ozzy Osbourne Bit the Head Off a Bat Thirty-Seven Years Ago, and, for Some Reason, Now a Toy Commemorates It.") 

A performer known as Frank Discussion of the band Feederz not only showed up on stage at the Gilman Warehouse Project in Berkeley in 1987 with live insects cemented to his head but also carrying the bodies of a dead cat and a dead dog. (See the Associated Press, July 24, 1987, "Dead Animals Reportedly Thrown at Rock Club Audience.")

Furthermore, although the courts invariably allow birders to get away scot-free with the despicable crimes that they commit against cats and their owners, Rodgers comments are without a doubt the most asinine ever uttered by any jurist hearing a case of this nature. Furthermore, since everyone on this planet knows that birders steal, poison, and kill cats with a regularity that is comparable to the sun's rising and setting, absolutely nobody could possibly be as bloody, damned stupid as Rodgers pretends to be; rather, he surely must be a cat-hater like Tripp and thus fervently believes that they and their owners are undeserving of the protections afforded by the law.

For her part, Warren apparently accepted Schleiger's claim that Tripp is an animal lover but even in doing so she questioned his intellectual acumen. "One would expect an animal lover, or someone who is across animal conservation, would know the difference between a feral and a domestic cat," she told  the court according to the ABC.

First of all, there is not anything to be found online that would tend to indicate that Tripp ever has been anything other than a birder who steals and kills cats and that certainly does not make him an animal lover. 

He certainly is not known for championing the cause of any animals, including that of birds.

Joan Lloyd and Gail McDonald of the AJP Protested Outside the Court  

Secondly, Warren is dead wrong to insist that there is any difference, other than socio-economic, between so-called ferals and domesticated cats. To put the matter another way, the latter have owners to, supposedly, protect them from cat-haters whereas the former are all alone in this world and thus are considered to be fair game for all of man's abuses and unquenchable thirst for their blood.  

Derogatory monikers, such as "feral," "stray," "vermin," and "pest" that are routinely slapped on cats by societies all around the world are nothing more than outrageous slanders and libels designed to divest them of all worthiness and in turn to whip up support for their eradication. More often than not they are accompanied by stock photographs of them either snarling or with birds in their mouths; Rupert Murdoch's unscrupulous ABC indulges in such yellow journalism morning, noon, and night. 

The same types of lies also are circulated freely in the human realm in order to dehumanize certain individuals and groups in a prelude to likewise exterminating them. "The mass of rich and poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit," George Orwell pointed out in his 1933 novel, Down and Out in Paris and London. "...It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you."

Yet, even at this late date in history all men are judged, not by their characters, but rather by the size of their respective wallets. "In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except 'get money, get it legally and get a lot of it'?" Orwell continued. "Money has become the grand test of virtue."

There accordingly is not really all that much difference in how that societies treat cats and men. Those members of both groups who either have money or access to it are thus permitted to live whereas those that do not are at best ignored and, at worst, defamed and killed.

In Mango's case, however, Tripp could not possibly have failed to recognize that she belonged to one of his neighbors. Her very presence in a residential neighborhood, her friendly demeanor, shiny coat, and the fact that she was well-fed and groomed shouted that out for him and everyone else to behold.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from Tripp's behavior and that of all others who think and behave like him is that he not only hates cats but their owners and supporters as well. Regrettably, most observers and commentators have yet to grasp that petit fait.

He and his misbegotten ilk hate cats and their owners for two main reasons. First of all, the former are totalitarians who broker no opposition whereas cats and their supporters are anything but rank and file fascists. Secondly, they believe that cats and their owners are weaklings and therefore easy to push around and to abuse.

The fourth defense that Schleiger put forward on behalf of his client was that he was justified in killing Mango because she was threatening wildlife on his property. Yet, he did not offer so much as a shred of evidence in order to support that contention.

Besides, even if that were true it certainly would not have endowed Tripp with a right to have seized and drowned her. Much more importantly, Schleiger's entire argument falls apart on its face if his client was in fact luring Mango onto his property so that he in turn could trap and kill her.

Sadistic, hate-filled en masse killers of cats and other animals have replaced the Adolf Hitlers and Pol Pots of yesterday and nowadays they strut around with haloes calling themselves ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and environmentalists. They are successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of a tremendous number of people but even so their blatant lies, prejudices, hatreds, unspeakable cruelties, and injustices are impossible to overlook.

For example, sixty-nine-year-old Barry Green of Kangaroo Island, one-hundred-twelve kilometers southwest of Adelaide in the Southern Ocean, also professes to be a "hands-on environmentalist" and to prove it he boasts of having killed thirteen-hundred-ninety-two cats as of February of 2017. It might be more accurate, however, to describe him as a sadistic cat-killing capitalist who dearly loves all the money that he rakes in off of selling the pelts of his victims. 

Although he is hoping that the national government in Canberra will one day reimburse him for his killing spree, for the time being he is making money hand over fist by fashioning his victims' pelts into blankets, caps, refrigerator magnets, bookmarkers, and holders for mobile telephones, toilet paper, and beer bottles and cans.

Magistrate Ian Rodgers Is Either a Cat-Hater or a Complete Imbecile

He additionally is making a pretty penny off of the Chinese who foolishly believe that the hides of felines are a better palliative for arthritis than all the ingenuity of modern medicine. In his spare time, he busies himself by turning his excess pelts into macabre objets d'art. 

Green and Tripp are therefore two of a kind. (See Cat Defender post of April 7, 2017 entitled "A Mass Murderer of Cats, Entrepreneur, Medicine Man, and Artist Are Just a Few of the Many Hats That Are Worn by a "Hand-On Environmentalist" on Kangaroo Island.")

In his fifth defense, Schleiger begged the court to show mercy for his client because he recently had undergone heart surgery. Whereas it is conceivable that Tripp possibly could have suffered a relapse, as far as it is known his only heart attack occurred in February of 2016 while he was in Honolulu.

It is indisputable, however, that his health woes, whenever they occurred, have done absolutely nothing in order to either slake his thirst for feline blood or to impair his physical ability to carry out his despicable crimes. Moreover, he not only looks to be as healthy as a horse in all the recent photographs of him that have appeared online but also to be, in his own words, enjoying killing cats to the hilt.

Back in 2016, however, he reportedly exited this vale of tears for a full four minutes before he was brought back to the land of the living by a trio of onlookers who restarted his heart no fewer than three times by using CPR. He later recovered and had a combination digital defibrillator and a pacemaker implanted at a hospital in Honolulu. (See The Music.com.au of Fortitude Valley, Queensland, February 28, 2016, "Industry Icon Phil Tripp Suffers Heart Attack in Hawaii.")

Sometimes it is ill-advised to interfere with The Fates. In Tripp's case, it certainly would have been far preferable if those who came to his rescue would have instead allowed him to have died on the spot.

This world most assuredly would have been a far better place without him in it and countless cats, including Mango, would sans doute still be alive today. It that regard it is going to be interesting to learn the reaction of his saviors once they learn that the only thing that they accomplished in saving his miserable life was to initial the execution warrants of so many defenseless cats.

As far as his numerous physicians are concerned, it is a shame that they are such mad dogs for shekels so as not to realize that a heart as malignant and hate-filled as his is not worth saving. If asked about that they surely would run and hide behind their old familiar saw that it was their duty to have saved his life. Yet, at the same time the medical profession as a whole does not have a problem with withholding its life-saving expertise, drugs, and vaccines from multitudes of far worthier, albeit impecunious, individuals.

Massive concentrations of wealth in the hands of the few and the medical expertise that comes along with it have corrupted the natural order of things. Nowadays, the dregs of the human race, such as Tripp, are becoming practically immortal while the life expectancies of this world's decent citizens are, in so many respects, actually growing progressively shorter day-by-day.

Tant pis, the absurd defense that it is perfectly permissible to kill cats if one is allegedly ailing has been extended to include sick family members as well. For example, on June 16, 2011 a seventy-one-year-old gardener named Patrick Doyle from Fields Road in the village of Wootton in Bedford, Bedfordshire, trapped a forever nameless black cat and then shot it point-blank from two feet away with an air rifle while it, like Mango, was caged.

His neighbor, Caroline Benbow-Hunt, belatedly tumbled to what he was up to and subsequently freed the cat. It ran off and was never seen again and is presumed to have died from its injuries.

At his trial on February 29, 2012 in Bedford Magistrates' Court Doyle feigned remorse and begged to be spared jail time because he, allegedly, had a sick wife at home. Predictably, the court fell for his lies and let him off with  £1,311.64 in court costs. (See Cat Defender post of March 13, 2012 entitled "The Sick Wife Defense Works Like a Charm for Cunning Patrick Doyle after He Traps a Cat and Then Shoots It with an Air Gun while Still in Its Cage.")

Other than questioning Tripp's remorse, Warren apparently did very little in order to rebut Schleiger's four other defenses. It thus would appear that she prosecuted him with a wet noodle.

Tripp in a Honolulu Hospital. It Is Just Too Bad That He Did Not Die There.

Owing to the slipshod and biased reporting of the ABC, it is not known if Rodgers allowed either Mango's owners, the AJP, or Hickson to testify on her behalf. Likewise, it is not known either what became of her body or if a necropsy was performed on it and the results of that inquiry presented at trial.

The ABC additionally fails to mention if Tripp took the stand in his own defense but more than likely he had the bon sens to have kept his big, fat trap closed tighter than the banks on a holiday. Despite his earlier avowal, he was not about to "man up." Criminals, cowards, and other assorted low-life like him never do; in fact, they are extremely proud of their ability to commit despicable crimes and to get away with doing so.

When it finally came down, Rodgers' verdict was every bit as predictable as it was anticlimactic. Specifically, he let Tripp off with nine months of probation and one-hundred hours of community service.

Moreover, his reasons for handing Tripp such a sweetheart deal were every bit as laughable as the verdict itself. For instance, he cited his good character, remorse, and the fact that he had pled guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Tripp's feigned remorse and the reasons behind his copping a plea have been delved into supra but as far as Rodgers' praise of his allegedly good character is concerned that most likely can be attributed to Australia's origin as a penal colony. In other words, criminal behavior is considered to be a sign of good character, especially when criminals are allowed to sit in judgment of other criminals.

If there were so much as a scintilla of justice in this world, Tripp would have been given the same amount of consideration that he showed Mango and nothing more. Specifically, he would have been locked inside a tiny steel cage that in turn was weighted down with blocks of concrete, ferried out beyond the shore, and then treated to a "swimming lesson" of his own in the Pacific Ocean. That not only would have been just but also a sure-fire way of wiping that conceited smirk off of his fat ugly map once and for all time.

The only morsel of consolation that Rodgers tossed in the direction of Mango's owners was his admission that Tripp's actions were "horrific" and "abhorrent" and that they were carried out with a high level of animal cruelty that entailed a degree of planning. That was not only putting the matter rather mildly but it is unlikely that Mango's owners found any comfort at all in his gratuitous concession. 

Despite their overwhelming victory, Tripp and Schleiger were dissatisfied with Rodgers' ruling not only because the former had been placed on probation but especially because he had been stripped of the custody of his parrot of twenty-six years. Inexcusably, the slackers at the ABC have failed to clarify if the court has taken away the bird permanently or only for the duration of Tripp's probation. Logically, it would appear that the latter is the case given that Warren had futilely asked the court to impose a five-year ban on the convict's buying, caring for, and owning of pets.

Besides, it is difficult to believe that Rodgers turned a deaf ear to Schleiger's sob story that the bird "was not like an ordinary family pet" and that it would suffer separation anxiety if it were taken away from Tripp. In other words, the lives and well-being of birds count for everything whereas the lives of cats like Mango count for absolutely nothing.

There in a nutshell lies the entire problem with the human condition and exemplifies writ large why that there never will be any peace on this earth. If people were only willing to live and let live, peace and some small measure of harmony might be possible but when this world abounds with individuals who think and behave like Tripp and Schleiger a fight to the absolute finish is the only conceivable outcome of the entire shebang.

Furthermore, Rodgers' total lack of empathy for both Mango and her owners underscores that point. Judges and courts supposedly exist in order to rectify injustices but instead of doing that Rodgers has only added to them while in the process making a mockery of all law and morality. Perhaps worst of all, his decision can only be interpreted as giving a judicial green light to Tripp and other bird advocates to ratchet up the commission of their crimes against cats and their owners.

Even though Rodgers let his client off awfully easy, Schleiger had already announced his intention to file an appeal even before the ink was dry on his ruling. It therefore is pretty much a foregone conclusion that Tripp is going to be allowed to keep his bird, skip probation, and to continue stealing and killing cats with impunity. The only part of his modus operandi that he is likely to alter is his boasting and preening on Facebook.

Not only will he never mend his evil ways but he also fits the profile of a serial cat killer to a tee. Like him, they usually are white, as old as the hills, fat, bald on the top but with facial hair, and as ugly as homemade sin. They do not have anything positive going for themselves in their miserable lives except for their love of either birds or their precious little gardens, and they hate the remainder of creation, but especially cats and their owners, with a passion.

Tripp Is Still as Free as a Bird and as Full of Himself as Always 

Most importantly, they are extremely clever and skilled dissemblers. It is therefore dangerous to have them on the loose in any society; au contraire, they should be permanently removed and locked in cages.

That is not about to happen, however; on the contrary, they not only continue to proliferate but to grow richer and more powerful by the hour. For example, Tripp is supposedly putting the finishing touches on a memoir entitled What a Long Strange Tripp It's Been. No publication date has been announced but regardless of when his tome debuts it is going to be interesting to see how much that he is going to be willing to disclose about all the cats that he has stolen and hideously killed.

It doubtlessly will be an instant bestseller, at least with ornithologists, who will no doubt flock to bookstores everywhere with high expectations of picking up a few pointers from the cat-killing master himself. It also is going to be interesting to see if the Grateful Dead raises any objections to him ripping off the title of their 1977 album for his book. Of course, it is superfluous to point out that stealing is nothing new for him and that rock n' roll and animal cruelty are, likewise, old bedfellows.

Rodgers' stubborn refusal to hold Tripp accountable has left Mango's heartbroken owners in a totally untenable situation. Nevertheless, they should at least look into the feasibility of suing him in civil court for stealing and killing Mango. He already has admitted his guilt on Facebook and any halfway competent mouthpiece should be capable of making a sizable dent in his wallet.

If either Tripp or the police have not already thrown it out in the garbage, they also should at least attempt to get hold of Mango's corpse so as to provide her with a fitting final resting place. Above all, they should consider getting out of Australia.

There is currently an all-out war against cats going on throughout the country and that in turn makes Australia an unfit place for either them or those that care about them. Almost as bad, the outside world has totally failed to not only take decisive punitive political and economic action against this outlaw state but also to mount a large-scale rescue operation in order to get as many cats out of the country as possible. (See Cat Defender posts of August 11, 2005, September 21, 2006, September 7, 2007, July 14, 2008, August 24, 2011, and November 18, 2016 entitled, respectively, "The Barbaric Australians Come Up with an Ingenious New Poison in Order to Exterminate Cats," "The Aussies' Mass Extermination of Cats Opens the Door for Mice and Rabbits to Wreak Havoc on Macquarie," "Australians Renounce Civilization and Revert to Savages with the Introduction of a Grotesque Plan to Get Rid of Cats by Eating Them," "An Australian Park Ranger and a Seamstress Team Up in Order to Go into Business as Cat Killers and Fur Traffickers," "Self-Defense Is Against the Law in Australia after a Woman Who Attacked a Cat Gets Away with Her Heinous Crime Whereas Her Victim Is Trapped and Executed," and "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages.")  

That is the good news. For although the Australians have been poisoning, shooting, trapping, and eating cats for decades as well as employing dogs, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, and wildfires in order to totally exterminate them, their war on the species is about to enter a far crueler and deadlier phase.

In particular, research is already underway in order to genetically modify them out of existence. The game plan is to, inter alia, make them susceptible to all sorts of deadly diseases, to inject them with genes that will only allow them to give birth to male cats and, failing that, to completely sterilize them out of existence. (See Newsweek, November 23, 2021, "Australia Might Genetically Modify Feral Cats Out of Existence," The Age of Melbourne, May 23, 2021, "Scientists Want to Alter Rodent Genes to Prevent Mice Plagues," and Yale Environment 360, February 9, 2021, "Assisting Evolution: How Far Should We Go to Help Species Adapt?")

The Aussies already have been waging chemical and genetic warfare against rabbits ever since at least 1950 and more recently against carp. (See The Conversation of Boston, October 24, 2021, "Don't Underestimate Rabbits: These Powerful Pests Threaten More Native Wildlife Than Cats or Foxes.")

In addition to the more than six million cats that they intend to eradicate by using every cruel and inhumane killing methodology imaginable, they plan on eliminating just about all carp, rats, rabbits, goats, red foxes, and cane toads plus twenty-three million pigs, five million donkeys, three-hundred-thousand horses, and half a million camels. (See Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005. "Millions of Animals Face Death Sentence in Australia.") 

Exterminating cats and other animals has become, arguably, Australia's number one industry. For instance, seemingly every governmental entity (national, state, and local), the capitalistic media, such as the ABC, the universities, and the business community are not only spearheading this killing spree but profiting handsomely from it as well.

Lone wolves, such as Tripp and Green, are merely two of the movement's high-profile exponents. By way of opposition, there is only the AJP.

Moreover, they are being aided and abetted in the commission of their atrocities by -- guess who? -- the United States government, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the capitalists and in particular the inventors and manufacturers of deadly poisons and, of course, the degree mills. The National Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservatory, and that bastion of dishonest journalism, The New York Times, are their cheerleaders. (See Cat Defender posts of December 8, 2007, June 15, 2009, July 9, 2018, and July 22, 2018 entitled, respectively, "All the Lies That Fit: The New York Times Hires a Bird Lover to Render His 'Unbiased' Support for James M. Stevenson," "The American Bird Conservancy, The New York Times, and the Humane Society of the United States Unite to Form an Achse des Bösen Against Cats," "The Slimy, Underhanded, and Utterly Despicable New York Times Fabricates Another One-Sided, Scurrilous Screed Against Cats and This Time Around the Target of Its Libels Is a TNR Colony a the Googleplex in Mountain View," and "As Their Colleagues Across the United States Continue to Defame and Wage War Against the Species, a Handful of Foreign Correspondents for The New York Times Are Hypocritically Turning to Cats for Their Salvation and Deliverance," plus The New York Times, April 25, 2019, "Australia Is Deadly Serious About Killing Millions of Cats.")   

Unless they are exposed and stopped, America is destined to, sooner or later, become another living hellhole for cats and their supporters.

Photos: Facebook (Mango, Tripp's post on Facebook, and him in the hospital), The Industry Observer (Tripp with his parrot and seated at a table), Claudia Jambor of the ABC (protestors), and the Newcastle Herald (Rodgers).

Deamion Robert Davis Is at Long Last Arrested for Brutally Killing a Cat in the Parking Lot of a Funeral Home in Johnson City That Earlier Had Been Stolen and Given to Him on Craigslist

Deamion Robert Davis

"This is a prime example of why we tell people not to give animals away on Craigslist. Unfortunately there are people who want to harm animals and this is an easy way for them to get them."

-- Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter.

At around 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 18th, a beautiful longharied yellow and white cat was found brutally slain in the parking lot of the Appalachian Funeral Home and Cremation Services at 800 East Wantagh Avenue in Johnson City, ninety-eight kilometers north of Asheville. It had been stabbed multiple times, beaten about the head with a blunt object, and its rear legs had been bound with duct tape.

It was lying in a pool of blood that had been run through by an automobile and that in turn has fueled speculation that it also had been run over. The likely murder weapon, a bloody screwdriver, was found nearby.

As far as it is known, the cat was neither collared and tagged, tattooed, nor microchipped. Although the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) was informed of the cat's name, sex, and age shortly after its lifeless body was discovered, it has chosen to this very day to keep those vital details to itself.

It would be a mistake, however, to read anything sinister into that glaring omission. Rather, the officers of the JCPD are simply too ailurophobic, blockheaded, and callous to believe that any cat could ever possibly have a name, a sex, and anyone would might care about it. As far as they are concerned, cats were put here on this earth only to be neglected and abused.

Regrettably, they are far from being the only individuals on this earth who think that way. "A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle," is how that the usually reliable Ambrose Bierce defined a cat in his 1906 magnum opus, The Devil's Dictionary.

A necropsy was supposedly ordered but the results of it never were released to the public. Days dragged into weeks and the latter into months as this case grew day-by-day colder than the cat's refrigerated remains.

No arrest was forthcoming and none was expected from the uncaring slackers within the JCPD. Not even the killer's throwing down of the gauntlet to them by so brutally killing the cat in a public place and then putting it on display for all to see could prompt them to take action.

It thus appears that they were too busy counting their money, twiddling their thumbs, and beating up their girlfriends in order to be bothered with the brutal murder of a cat. (See WCYB-TV of Bristol, Virginia, October 25, 2021, "Johnson City Police Officer Accused of Threatening to Kill His Girlfriend Arrested" and the Johnson City Press, October 23, 2021, "Johnson City Police Officer Arrested on Domestic Violence Charge.")

Perhaps most disturbing of all, even the spilling of so much innocent blood on the sabbath in the very heart of the Bible Belt was insufficient in order to get the nearly forty-seven per cent of local residents who, according to best places. com, consider themselves to be religious to put pressure on the police to act. The faith is not what it used to be...or maybe it is exactly what it always has been, id est, primarily hot air and hypocrisy. (See Cat Defender post of June 4, 2021 entitled "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.")

Then out of the blue on October 19th came the startling announcement that nineteen-year-old Deamion Robert Davis of 1404 Baxter Street in Johnson City had been arrested and charged with killing the cat. No additional information about him, such as any prior arrests that he might have, has been disclosed to the public.

It is not even known who made the arrest. Given that his mug shot is credited to the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Jonesborough, twelve kilometers southwest of Johnson City, it would seem logical to conclude that the collar was made by that department as opposed to the JCPD.

The Camera Does Not Lie: Davis Looks Just as Ugly in Color

Following his apprehension, Davis was taken to the Washington County Detention Center, also in Jonesborough, where his bail was set at US$10,000. He was arraigned in Washington County Sessions Court in Jonesborough on October 20th but his trial date has not been posted online.

If he does in fact reside at 1404 Baxter Street, he surely did not have any problem with coming up with the US$100 that he would have needed in order to have regained his freedom because, according to zillow.com, a brick ranch house containing three bedrooms, two baths, one-thousand-four-hundred-sixty-four square feet of space, trees, and a garden occupies more than a third of an acre of land at that address. Moreover, the house is appraised at US$195,800.

It is within walking distance of the Fairmount School and the Girl Scouts of Southern Appalachians and a Texas Roadhouse are located nearby. Although Davis may look like a strung out junkie in his mug shot, 1404 Baxter Street is the very epitome of bourgeois respectability.

C'est-à-dire, either he or, more likely, his parents not only have money but more than enough of it in order to buy him out of this temporary embarrassment and inconvenience. As the legal eagles in America are fond of saying, an individual is presumed innocent until proven broke.

His arrest came after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) in Nashville found his fingerprints on the duct tape that had been used in order to bind the cat's rear legs. (See WCYB-TV, October 19, 2021, "Johnson City Man Arrested in Connection with Cat Tortured and Found Dead in April 2021.")

Given that Davis' arrest came almost six months to the day after the cat was found, it is only fair to ask why that it took the TBI so long in order to get around to dusting the duct tape for fingerprints? That is a rather simple procedure but because of the TBI's tardiness Davis could have been on Mars by the time that it got around to doing its job. Since the agency is not saying, it would appear that it is also run by derelicts and slackers who are every bit as ailurophobic and bone-lazy as the rotters within the JCPD.

Malheureusement, the dereliction of duty on the part of both law enforcement bodies is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg in this disturbing case of cruelty to a cat. The events that led up to the cat's killing are even more bizarre and, arguably, every bit as criminal.

For starters, Johnson City resident Krista Kennedy contacted the JCPD shortly after the cat was found in order to inform it that she believed it to be hers. Press reports fail to mention, however, if the JCPD summoned her to the morgue in order to make a positive identification. 

Even more shocking, any individual who cared so much as one whit about her cat would have rushed unbeckoned to the JCPD and demanded to have not only viewed the body but to have taken it home with her and given it a proper burial. Nevertheless, her coming forward did put the cops on the right scent and they should have been capable of taking things from there on their own and to have made an arrest long before the end of April.

According to Kennedy's story, she had gone out of town and while that she was away she had left the cat in the care of Steve Kacmar; who he is and what type of a relationship that he has with her has not been divulged. For his part, he told the Johnson City Press on October 20th that "he was watching the cat and let the cat out as usual." (See "Cat Killed in Parking Lot Came from Craigslist Ad.")

That was sometime on Friday, April 16th and that was the last time that he ever saw either hide or hair of it. Less than two days later it was found dead in the parking lot of the charnel house.

1404 Baxter Street Is an Idyllic Abode for Such a Monster as Davis

What occurred during the interim is the stuff that horror movies are made of and this despicable crime has at its center its very own evil witch in the form of a nosey, no-good neighbor named Cyndi Wall who promptly stole the cat because "she did not agree with how Kacmar was taking care of the cat."

If that had been all that she had done that in itself would have been bad enough but she did not have the decency to have stopped there but rather she turned around and got rid of it almost immediately as if it were a hot potato. She did so by placing an advertisement on Craigslist and shortly thereafter giving it away to Davis.  

As far as it has been revealed, no money exchanged hands and it is highly doubtful that Wall even asked him for either identification or references. She therefore quite obviously intended for the cat to meet with malice aforethought because absolutely nobody who cared the least little bit about a cat's safety and well-being would ever so much as entertain the notion of either giving it away or selling it to a perfect stranger on the Internet. 

She accordingly is guilty of stealing the cat and should have been arrested along with Davis. Actually, she should also have have been charged with aggravated animal cruelty, just as he has been, because she is, in so many respects, even more culpable than him. Much more to the point, it was precisely her criminal acts that made Davis' dastardly conduct possible.

Whereas conscientious individuals have been known to steal cats off the street out of a genuine concern for their well-being and then to refuse to return them to their rightful owners, that most definitely was not the motivating factor behind Wall's patently criminal conduct. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "A Hungry and Disheveled Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")  

That realization segues into the crucial question of what actually was it that motivated her to act as she did? Since there is not anything in the public record to even remotely suggest that either Kennedy or Kacmar were in any way neglecting or abusing the cat, that explanation can be immediately dismissed.

     
The most obvious answer would be that Wall is a bird-lover because they, as a group, are infamous all around the world for stealing, torturing, dumping, and killing not only their neighbors' cats but also those that belong to managed TNR colonies. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2007, November 16, 2007, January 19, 2011, August 8, 2011, August 17, 2011, and March 9, 2012 entitled, respectively, "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," "A Bird Lover in München Illegally Traps Rocco and Then Methodically Tortures Him to Death with Water and Pepper Spray over an Eleven-Day Period," "Ernst K.'s Trial for Kidnapping, Torturing, and Murdering Rocco Nears Its Climax in a München Courtroom," "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," and "An Amateur Ornithologist Guns Down Hartley with an Air Rifle, Feigns Remorse, and Then Cheats Justice by Begging and Lying.")  

Gardeners are likewise notorious for committing the same atrocities against their neighbors' cats. (See Cat Defender posts of June 10, 2010, August 26, 2010, and March 13, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Cat-Hating Gardener in Nordrhein Westfalen Is Told by the Local Authorities to Remove a Board of Nails from His Yard," "In Stark Contrast to Ailurophobic America, Ziegelchen's Illegal Trapping by a Gardener in Altstädten-Burbach Is Roundly Condemned in Deutschland," and "The Sick Wife Defense Works Like a Charm for Cunning Patrick Doyle after He Traps a Cat and Then Shoots It with an Air Rifle while Still in Its Cage.")

Another favorite tactic of both groups of criminals is to trap their neighbors' cats and then to hand them over to shelters in order to kill. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006, March 9, 2007, October 30,2006, and August 19, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps His Neighbors' Cats and Then Gives Them to a Shelter to Exterminate," "A Long Island Serial Cat Killer Is Guilty of Only Disorderly Conduct, a Corrupt Court Rules," "A Collar Saves Turbo from Extermination after He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths," and "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and a Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw.")

It therefore is strongly suspected that cat-hating birders and gardeners have now gravitated to social media sites, such as Craigslist, in order to solicit the assistance of monsters like Davis in the commission of their despicable crimes. For them to have joined forces with such undesirables can only be described as a case of birds of a feather flocking together.

This Is What Davis, with Cyndi Wall's Assistance, Did to This Cat

Moreover, it is already well established that dogfighters, vivisectors, and other scumbags are acquiring their feline victims online. (See Cat Defender post of October 31 2021 entitled "The Arrest of a Dogfighter in Ayr Provides a Rare Glimpse into the Utterly Despicable Abuse That Bait Cats Are Subjected to but the Scottish SPCA Still Stubbornly Persists in Treating Them as Expendable Nonentities.")  

Kennedy likewise cannot escape censure for leaving her cat behind to fend for itself while she went out of town. This is a difficult lesson for most owners to acknowledge but the care of a cat cannot be delegated to anyone, save perhaps a close family member whose fidelity to it is beyond reproach. Why, even the most dedicated owners have their hands full in keeping their cats both safe and healthy.

There are even a myriad of dangers inherent in boarding cats at surgeries, pet hotels, and groomers. Some sitters are rather conscientious in the fulfillment of their solemn obligations but even under such circumstances the cats are left all alone in empty houses and apartments twenty-four hours a day except for the brief visits that they make in order to feed them once or twice a day.

As everyone should be acutely aware, fires, gas leaks and burglaries occur all the time and when they do somebody needs to be on hand who is both willing and able to take care of the cats. (See Cat Defender post of September 9, 2009 entitled "Home Alone in New Zealand, Friendly Little Nookie Is Repeatedly Kicked and Left for Dead by Vicious Burglars.")

Most importantly of all, it has been demonstrated time and time again that lovers, so-called friends, and roommates can seldom be entrusted with the care of a cat. For example, Alex McAllaster of Fort Walton Beach idiotically left her beloved light-brown and white tomcat Dante all alone with an unidentified roommate when she left town on a six-week sailing expedition in late April of 2013. Even more egregiously, she did so knowing full well that he was suffering from bladder problems and therefore could not eat kibble.

 

As things soon turned out, she was hardly out the door before her roommate took Dante to a nearby Sam's Club and gave him away to a perfect stranger in the parking lot. That unidentified individual then most likely dumped him because Dante almost immediately found himself homeless and all alone in a hostile world.  

"You could have burned the house down, I wouldn't have cared," McAllaster later swore to the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach on June 7, 2013. (See "Roommate Gives Cat Away; Owner Searching.")  "But you screwed with my cat."

It took an enormous amount of searching but McAllaster's hard work finally paid a huge dividend on June 29th when she finally was able to locate Dante near a Walmart's at 748 Beale Parkway Northeast. By that time, he was dirty, emaciated, and possibly may have suffered liver damage.

Despite having lost half of his sixteen pounds, the attending veterinarian expected him to recover. (See the Northwest Florida Daily News, July 3, 2013, "Cat Given Away by Roommate Found: 'As Soon as He Meowed, I Knew It was Him!'.")   

Just last week there was story in the news concerning an unidentified man who could not get along with his common law wife's black cat. So, while she was away one day he took the cat and dumped it at a shelter.

A Bloody Screwdriver Was Found Near the Cat's Body

He then cleverly replaced it with another black cat more to his liking and now, six years later, he is claiming that the woman, whom he eventually married, never has had so much as a clue as to his devilry. (See Tag24 of Dresden, November 6, 2021, "Weil sie zu Aggressiv war: kaum zu glauben, was dieser Mann der Katze seiner Frau angetan hat," The Mirror of London, November 3, 2021, "'I Swapped My Wife's Cat's for an Identical One -- It's Been Six Years and She Has No Clue'," and Newsweek, November 3, 2021, "Woman (sic) Secretly Swapping Wife's Cat for 'Identical' Better Behaved One Sparks Debate.") 

If against all odds there should be so much as a kernel of truth in man's outrageous tale, his wife would have to be awfully thick-headed which seems highly unlikely. On the contrary, few women are that stupid; in fact, most of them are highly observant. A bloke has to get up awfully early in order to put anything over on a woman, especially considering that most of them are just naturally suspicious, with good cause, of men.

That story does, however, underscore the danger of leaving a beloved cat alone with a lover for so much as a single minute, let alone going out of town for an extended stay. Cat haters and killers are everywhere and they come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sexes, but the most dangerous ones of all are the dissemblers and Machiavellians. It accordingly would be a colossal mistake for anyone to ever underestimate them.

Not a great deal is ever heard in the United States about abusers and killers who use duct tape in order to hobble cats so that they in turn can torture them to death, but the practice appears to be rather widespread north of the border. For example, in a case that is eerily similar to this one, an unidentified cat was found dead in Calgary in January of 2014 with tape covering just about all of its face. A necropsy later showed that it had been strangled and beaten about the head, tail, and rear legs. 

Along about the same time, a malnourished dog was found in the same vicinity with its mouth taped shut. Unlike the lazy, good-for-nothing bums within the JCPD, the Calgary Humane Society (CHS) did not take these atrocities lying down.

Au contraire, it went out and arrested nineteen-year-old drunkard and dope addict Nicolini Camardi of Calgary and charged him with animal cruelty. Deplorably, the CHS's good work ultimately was undone by Justice George J. Gaschler of the Provincial Court of Alberta, sitting in Calgary, who let him off with twenty-two months in jail, the first sixteen of which he had already served while awaiting trial.

For what little it is worth, Gaschler did place him on probation for three years and banned him from owning pets for the remainder of his life. He also was ordered to undergo anger, alcohol, and drug counseling.

That sweetheart deal left Heather Anderson of Delegates Against Inhumane Suffering (the Daisy Foundation) livid. "It's pathetic that our justice system does not see that these animal abuse cases need to have much higher penalties," she said. "It's just not right. It's time that something happened and people started speaking out on behalf of the animals." (See Cat Defender post of November 25, 2015 entitled "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.") 

Not all cretins who disable cats with various forms of tape actually go on to kill them. Even so, just doing that much leaves them vulnerable to starvation, hypothermia, and predation by dogs and wildlife.

For instance, in March of 2015 a strikingly handsome three-year-old longhaired, black and white polydactyl named Bruce Almighty was found in Regina, Saskatchewan, with all four of his limbs trussed up with electrician's tape. He was rescued at the last minute by a kindhearted couple but he later required extensive surgeries and a prolonged stay in the hospital in order to regain the use of his legs. 

Dante Was Stolen by a Roommate and Then Fobbed Off on a Stranger

In the end, however, he recovered to the point that he was able to be adopted. (See Cat Defender post of November 10, 2015 entitled "Bruce Almighty Weathers an Abominable Act of Cruelty Coupled with the Intrigues of the Regina Humane Society in Order to Hopefully Be Able to Pick Up the Pieces of His Shattered Life.")  

During a hellish six-week period back in 2012, three cats were found bound with tape in four separate incidents in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The first assault occurred on September 6th when a sixteen-year-old tom named Sam owned by Dianne Gordon of Poplar Street was found with his paws wrapped in blue duct tape and his tail fastened to his neck.

On that same date, a cat named Zuma who was owned by Liberty Harakas and lived only two doors down the street from Sam and Gordon was also discovered trussed up with blue duct tape. Later on October 1st, a brown female with black markings named Nellie was found on Chestnut Street, about one-thousand feet removed from Poplar Street, with green painter's tape covering her body. 

Three weeks later on October 22nd, her assailant attacked her again. The only differences this time around was that he used brown as opposed to blue duct tape and that he had tightly bound her feet and fastened her tail to her body.

Both attacks left her owner, Jennifer Paloposki, shocked and frightened for Zuma's safety. (See the News Bulletin of Nanaimo, October 25, 2012, "Police Investigating Cruelty to Cat" and the Nanaimo Daily News, October 25, 2012, "Police Have 'Several Persons of Interest' to Talk with after Series of Cats Duct-Taped.")

Although it is a foregone conclusion that the judges who rule in roost in Washington County General Sessions Court are going to let Davis off with probation and, possibly, a minuscule fine, it is going to be interesting to see what effect, if any, that state Senate Bill 166, which was sponsored by Senator Jon Lundberg of Bristol and signed into law on May 27th by Governor Bill Lee, is going to have on the outcome of this case. By removing the requirement that the prosecution must prove that a defendant acted in  a "depraved and sadistic manner" should make it considerably easier for it to win a conviction, that is if it is even halfway serious about doing so.

Aggravated animal cruelty is a Class E felony in Tennessee and Davis could be sentenced from one to six years in jail and fined up to US$3,000. That is not much of a penalty for torturing and killing a cat and, worse still, the new law is not going to make much of a difference if judges continue to follow their time-honored tradition of coddling abusers.

Furthermore, since Davis committed his despicable crime before the new law went into effect, he may be tried under the old one. That has not deterred Lady Freethinker of Santa Monica from starting an online petition urging prosecutor Kenneth Baldwin, who represents the First Judicial District of which Johnson City is a part, to go after Davis to the fullest extent of the law.

As of November 6th, the petition had collected fifty-two-thousand-four-hundred-thirty signatures. (See Lady Freethinker, October 28, 2021, "Alleged Cat Killer Found and Arrested.")

Nicolini Camardi also Used Tape in Order to Kill Cats and Dogs

Regardless of what happens with Davis once he is finally forced to stand in the dock and to face the music, the work of the JCPD and the Washington County Sheriff's Office is far from being finished. On the contrary, it is paramount that they arrest Cyndi Wall for stealing Kennedy's cat and then giving it away on Craigslist.

Such behavior is a huge problem, especially with bird lovers and gardeners, and it urgently needs to be addressed not only by the law enforcement community but also legislators such as Lundberg. As things currently stand, these cat-hating individuals and groups fervently believe that they have invented the perfect crime and that they thus have been granted a license to practice their rabid ailurophobia with impunity.

These rotten, despicable egomaniacs therefore need to be disabused of their feelings of invincibility and there is not any better way of doing so than by arresting and locking them up in prison for a good long time while simultaneously cleaning out their bulging coffers. Once they have grown old, frail, and penniless, it then might be safe to release them in order to live in the street and to eat out of trash cans. It is just too bad that the law does not permit them to be blinded like Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

As far as Craigslist is concerned, its founder Craig Newmark is not about to mend his evil ways and get out of the animal trafficking business. He will not even kick off of his web site those individuals and businesses that post crooked real estate ads. (See the San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 2021, "Are Craigslist Vacation Rentals Always a Scam?")   

That by default leaves it up to those individuals who care about cats to neither sell nor to give them away on Craigslist or any other social media platform. "This is a prime example of why we tell people not to give animals away on Craigslist," Tammy Davis of the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter told the Johnson City Press in the October 20th article cited supra. "Unfortunately there are people who want to harm animals and this is an easy way for them to get them."

To be fair about the matter, neither shelters, veterinarians, breeders, pet shops, nor others who traffic in cats and other animals do anywhere near an adequate job of vetting those individuals that they allow to adopt and purchase their pets. Worst still, none of them have either the willingness or the resources in order to conduct the follow-up home visits which would be the only way of protecting the lives of the animals that they peddle to the public. That in turn leaves the safety and well-being of all animals in a simply deplorable state.

Presumably the cat's remains are still on ice awaiting the outcome of Davis' trial. After that, they undoubtedly will be either incinerated or thrown out in the garbage. That is how little regard that the judicial system in this country has for cats.

Before that is allowed to happen, Kennedy should insist that they be returned to her so that she can give her cat a proper funeral and burial. Considering how miserably that she failed to keep it safe from harm and abuse while it was live, that is the absolute very least that she can now belatedly do for it in death.

If she is unwilling to do even that much for it, the onus then falls upon the shoulders of David Mathes of the Appalachian Funeral Home who most assuredly has the expertise and resources in order to make the cat a small coffin and then to provide it with a final resting place on the spacious grounds of his establishment. Above all, it is imperative that he determine the cat's name, sex, and age and engrave those vital details on a fitting tombstone. That is not too much to ask, is it?

Neither the cat nor its abominable suffering must ever be forgotten by the citizens of Johnson City. Furthermore, its gravesite should serve as a constant reminder of the tremendous debt that they owe to it and to all of their feline residents. At the very top of that rather lengthy list is the imperative that they take drastic measures in order to put an immediate end to the abuse and killing of all cats and that admonition most definitely applies to Davis and the slaughterhouse that she presides over but yet dishonestly persists in calling a shelter.

Photos: Washington County Sheriff's Office (Davis), Zillow.com (1404 Baxter Street), the Washington County and Johnson City Animal Shelter (the dead cat), the Northwest Florida Daily News (Dante), and  Facebook (Camardi).