Basil Was Abducted, Shot in the Head, and Her Body Dumped in a Creek and, Although a Neighbor Was Immediately Implicated in Her Death, Apparently No Arrest Has Been Made More Than Two Months Later

Basil and Holly Mathews Often Went on Biking Trips Together

"The police are taking this case seriously and, with the help of the private investigators, movement, action and next steps are happening more quickly than I thought possible."

-- Holly Mathews

Basil was born somewhere in Norway in 2020. Soon thereafter the pretty tuxedo was adopted along with her sister, Parsley, by Americans Holly Mathews and Travis Lechner, the former of which who was working in the country at that time.

From all accounts the adoption was a match made in heaven. "It was love at first sight," the couple would later exclaim.

Lechner has even gone so far as to describe Basil and Parsley as a "lifeline." That is because while he and Mathews were living in Norway they had fallen into depression owing to, inter alia, the strangeness of living in a foreign country, the harsh winters, and the limited opportunities for social interaction occasioned by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Being forced to tough it out in almost total darkness during the winter months only served to darken their already somber mood. For example, Oslo in southern Norway receives only six to eight hours of sunlight during the winter months and that amount diminishes the farther north that one lives.

À propos de bottes, the darkness, cold, and snow apparently had little lasting impact upon famed English novelist Robert Barnard of Essex who spent eight years teaching English Literature at the University of Tromsø. Of course, he did not have to cope with a worldwide pandemic. Located one-thousand-seven-hundred-thirty-eight kilometers north of Oslo and three-hundred-fifty-four kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, it is known as the "Arctic University of Norway" and can lay claim to the prestigious title of being the world's northern most degree mill.

Au contraire, after returning to Old Blighty, he settled in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where over the course of the following several decades he proceeded to author more than forty novels, such as A City of Strangers, Death and the Chaste Apprentice, The Corpse at the Haworth Tandori, and The Cherry Blossom Corpse, before his death in 2013. Being a huge fan of Dame Agatha, his novels are primarily murder mysteries that are chock-full of local color and ambience.

Whereas countless individuals from all over the globe who adopted cats during lockdown have since then cruelly and inexcusably either abandoned them to the streets or handed them into shelters in order to be immediately exterminated upon arrival, Mathews and Lechner demonstrated their mettle as compassionate and responsible guardians by not only holding onto Basil and Parsley but by bringing them along with them when they returned to Longmont, sixty-five kilometers north of Denver in the Rocky Mountains. Although the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta does not impose any restrictions on the importation of cats from abroad, the state of Colorado, as well as the airlines, require that they be vaccinated against rabies within the past thirty days and that sans doute cost the couple a bundle as well as a trip to the vet. (See undated articles on the CDC's and the Colorado Department of Agriculture's web sites entitled, respectively, "Bringing a Cat into the United States" and "Small Animal International Imports.")

Once settled in Longmont, Mathews and Lechner resumed the outdoor lifestyle that they had established with their cats while living in Norway by taking them on long biking excursions, camping trips, and daily walks. They even established a page on Instagram, Basil and Parsley from Norway, chronicling their rambles with them.

They only made one mistake in their otherwise apparently excellent care of their cats and, in the case of Basil, it proved to have been a colossal and irreparable one and that was to have trusted her safety to Silicon Valley snake oil. Specifically, they outfitted her with a GPS tracking collar and then turned her loose in order to roam the perilous outdoors without any adult supervision whatsoever.

If there ever has been a prescription for disaster that was it and tragedy struck Basil in the most horrifying way imaginable on Sunday, August 27th. After having allowed her to venture outside "sometime" earlier in the day, the first inkling that the couple had that she was in trouble did not come until 9:05 p.m. when her GPS collar alerted them that she had strayed outside the predetermined radius that they had established for her and by that time it was way too late for them to have saved her.

The GPS collar also alerted them that she was inside and automobile and traveling south on Martin Street near Fifth Avenue in the eastern part of the city. Exactly how far that was from their house at 252 Baker Street is unclear. The important thing is that the couple immediately got into their automobile and set out in hot pursuit of both Basil and her abductor.

From Martin Street, the culprit traveled to Ken Pratt Boulevard and then south to North One-Hundred-Nineteenth Street before turning left onto Quicksilver Road and then into the St. Vrain Greenway parking lot before heading north on East County Line Road where Basil's collar alerted the couple that the vehicle had stopped at St. Vrain Creek, a tributary of the South Platte River which flows through Longmont just south of center city. It is disquieting just to even contemplate the panic and fear that surely must have coursed through Mathews' and Lechner's souls as they raced on through the night, hoping against all hope, that Basil was in the hands of a benevolent individual who was delivering her to either a shelter or a veterinarian and that she somehow might still be able to extricate herself from whatever jam she had gotten into alive.

Sadly, The Fates were not on either their side or Basil's and by continuing to follow the signal emitted by her GPS tracker they eventually were able to locate her corpse sealed up inside a black trash bag and lying in that wretched creek. Her body was still warm and that is one indication that she was either killed en route to her intended watery grave or shortly before her killer had begun his journey at 9:05 p.m.

If the couple was unlucky in not being able to have rescued Basil in time to have saved her life, they at least were fortunate enough to have found her corpse before it sank to the bottom of the creek in that it is unclear if her GPS collar would have continued to function underwater. In any event, its batteries soon would have died if she had not been located in a timely manner.

Much more importantly, if her killer had been so cautious as to have removed and disabled her collar Mathews and Lechner likely never would have known what had become of her. Many cat killers are extremely clever and professional in what they do and as a consequence dozens, if not indeed hundreds, of cats disappear each day of the week without so much as a trace. As things turned out, the couple has been afforded at least some small measure of closure.

Rotten and utterly despicable cat abusers and killers are to be found in just about every neighborhood, no matter how outwardly genteel and sedate they may be, and guardians need to start taking their presence seriously. In addition to their cleverness and ruthlessness, they are masterful and well-seasoned dissemblers who will smile and fawn in an owner's face one moment only to turn around and steal and kill her cat the next time that her back is turned.

Travis Lechner Has Called Basil and Parsley a "Lifeline" During Lockdown

With the shocking and heartbreaking discovery of Basil's body, that otherwise joyful chapter in Mathews' and Lechner's lives came to an abrupt end and a new one, devoted to locating and punishing her killer, began. They accordingly notified the Longmont Police but it was unable to readily determine whether she had been shot with either a small caliber handgun or an air gun.

One never knows for certain but presumably the coppers were diligent enough in order to have taken custody of Basil's corpse and, at to the very least, removed the slug from her brain so as to determine what kind of weapon it had been fired from as well as its caliber. If it had come from a licensed firearm, they might have been able to trace it back to the weapon's owner. On the other hand, if it had come from an air gun tracing its origin would have been extremely difficult given that they are not regulated.

Shortly after they had fished Basil's lifeless body out of St. Vrain Creek, Mathews and Lechner sat down and reviewed the data collected throughout the day by her tracking collar and that was when they learned that she had been held at the home of a still publicly unidentified neighbor for four hours before she was taken on her last ride and shot to death. At that juncture it initially appeared that an arrest was imminent but, for yet to be disclosed reasons, that has not proven to have been the case.

Under that scenario, the homeowner most likely had set a trap for Basil in which she languished for four hours before he (most cat killers are men) came home and either shot her on the spot or transported to St.Vrain Creek and killed her there.

Regardless of how events played themselves out, the Longmont Police and forensics experts should have combed Basil's fur for microscopic bits of evidence. For example, if she had put up a struggle she might have had some of her killer's DNA on either her teeth or underneath her claws.

For some unexplained reason, the Longmont Police have not shown much apparent interest in the couple's neighbor and instead have gone off in another direction. "The officer in charge of the case was able to get camera footage from one of the intersections on the route of Basil's killer," Mathews disclosed without further explanation on September 1st in an article entitled "Justice for Basil" which was posted on Go Fund Me. "He has reached out to a business on the route and is waiting on that footage to be able to confidently narrow the specific vehicle involved."

On the face of it and not knowing any more than what has been posted online, that seems crazy. The emphasis should be on the homeowner, not the vehicle used in the commission of the crime.

"There is another major update involving the property at which Basil was held," Mathews continued in the September 1st article posted on "Justice for Basil." "In an effort to maintain some anonymity and not overcomplicate the details, I will make another video that shares more on that. Some complexities have been added due to this discovery, but we are still on the path toward justice."

What all of that double-talk means is anyone's guess. Nevertheless, Mathews was still, at least initially, confident that an arrest was imminent.

"The police are taking this case seriously and, with the help of the private investigators, movement, action and next steps are happening more quickly than I thought possible," she wrote September 7th on "Justice for Basil."

At least for the time being, this tragic and disturbing story has ended there. There have not been any further updates posted on "Justice for Basil" and no additional news stories have appeared online. Most disturbing of all, Basil's cold-blooded killer is still on the loose and walking around as free as a bird.

Moreover, it was nothing short of eye-popping to hear Mathews exclaim that the Longmont Police are taking Basil's abduction and killing seriously. If so, it would be the first time on record that any police force in the world has been known to have taken the murder of any cat even halfway seriously.

Au contraire, whether it be in their role as uniformed officers of the law or as Animal Control Officers, cops are far better known for killing cats than bringing their killers to the altar of justice. (See Cat Defender posts of September 1, 2016 and January 2, 2020 entitled, respectively, "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.")

Cops likewise never investigate the deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists or local, county, and state-level corruption; what little law enforcement that is undertaken in regard to the latter is done so by federal prosecutors connected to the Justice Department in Washington. People are free to believe whatever they please, but cops exist for only two reasons: to protect the lives and property of members of the establishment on the one hand and to put the screws to all those who are perceived as being a threat to that cozy arrangement.

Being greedy and ambitious, they fully recognize that in order to get ahead in this dog-eat-dog world they must make arrests and in furtherance of that objective they target certain unpopular individuals and groups, such as the homeless whom they regularly beat up on and steal all of their worldly possessions. In such a perverse environment, it is hardly surprising that the lives of cats and the interests of their owners count for considerably less than nothing. As famed attorney Clarence Darrow once bleakly pointed out, "there is no such thing as justice -- in or out of court."

Humane and feline advocacy groups are likewise just about as worthless as cops when it comes to investigating feline cruelty and abuse. Rather, they content themselves with filling the air with insincere  exclamations of shock and self-righteous moral indignation before quickly reversing gears and transforming these tragedies into fundraising opportunities.

The Route Taken by Basil's Kidnapper and Killer

One recent exception to that rather dismal record was the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Washington joining forces with the Virginia Attorney General's Office and Chesterfield County Animal Services on October 9th in order to seize one-hundred-ten cats and kittens from a commercial breeder known as DreamCoon on Bensley Road in Chesterfield County. The operators of this breeding operation, Russians Elena and Andrey Mikirtichev, have been charged with, inter alia, failing to provide their cats with proper veterinary care and by housing them in unsafe and unsanitary conditions that included cages that were too small for them and placing incompatible cats in the same cage. (See HSUS press release of October 10, 2023, "More Than One-Hundred Cats and Kittens Rescued from Commercial Breeder in Alleged Cruelty Situation in Chesterfield County, Virginia" and WTVR-TV of Richmond, October 11, 2023, "One-Hundred-Ten Cats Removed from Chesterfield Home. Here's Why.")

It remains to be seen, however, if the HSUS will do right by these horribly abused and neglected cats and kittens or take the easy and cheap route by having them killed off.

The USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) which, under the weak-as-water Animal Welfare Act of 1966, has the responsibility of regulating commercial breeders, vivisectors, and others who traffic in animals, had been aware of the horrors that existed at DeamCoon from as far back as 2021 but yet did absolutely nothing in order to stop the abuse and that in turn forced the HSUS and the state of Virginia to intervene. Not surprisingly, APHIS is the same slimy and sleazy federal agency that earlier this century waged a ten-year war on Ernest Hemingway's polydactyls in Key West. (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2013 entitled "The Feds Now Have Cats and Their Owners Exactly Where They Want Them Thanks to an Outrageous Court Ruling Targeting the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.")

Even on those extremely rare occasions when an arrest is made, usually when the culprit has been caught flagrante delicto by a private citizen, prosecutors refuse to prosecute the obviously guilty; instead, they almost always allow defendants to plea bargain felony animal cruelty charges down to misdemeanors. As a result, defendants are allowed to strut out of court with smirks on their ugly maps and with only minuscule fines and court costs as punishment. Even when convictions are secured against cat killers in either jury or bench trials, judges routinely void the efforts of both prosecutors and juries by turning loose the convicted with small and insignificant fines.

The one exception to that rule known to have occurred within the past fifteen years concerned a three-year-old, orange-colored cat named Bill that was owned by Janien Bubien from the San Diego suburb of Vista. On April 11, 2006, her next-door neighbor, forty-seven-year-old Robert Eugene Brunner, shot and killed Bill with arrows to his neck and back. He did so because Bill allegedly had pissed in his precious little yard.

On September 17, 2007, Judge K. Michael Kirkman of the Superior Court of San Diego County sentenced him to three years in jail. How much of that sentence he actually served is not known.

In an earlier civil lawsuit, Kirkman also ordered him to pay Bubien US$2,500 in compensation plus an additional US$5,000 so that she could relocate elsewhere. (See Cat Defender posts of August 14, 2007 and September 24, 2007 entitled, respectively, "A Grieving Widow Seeks Justice for Her Beloved Orange-Colored Tom, Bill, Who Was Hunted Down and Savagely Killed with a Bow and Arrow" and "A California Man Who Slew His Neighbor's Cat, Bill, with a Crossbow Is Sentenced to Three Years in Jail.")

State legislators also are complicit in this cruel charade. For example, they are all the time supposedly strengthening the anti-cruelty statutes while simultaneously knowing full well that the police and humane groups will not investigate these types of crimes, prosecutors will not prosecute, and jurists will not punish the guilty. It is all political beau geste.

Mathews has retained the services of a private dick in order to investigate Basil's abduction and killing but even that is problematic. For instance, after a fourteen-month-old black female named Farah that belonged to his daughter was shot and killed by an assailant armed with an air gun in Exeter, Devonshire, on September 24, 2014, Neil Tregarthen of Truro in Cornwall paid Focus Investigations of Exeter £10,000 in order to identify and locate her killer. 

Although the gumshoes were able to have identified a likely suspect both the Devon and Cornwall Police as well as the RSPCA still stubbornly refused to act on the information supplied to them free of charge. (See Cat Defender post of April 2, 2015 entitled "A Cornishman Shells Out £10,000 on Private Peepers in Order to Track Down Farah's Killer but Once Again Gets Stiffed by Both the Police and the RSPCA.")

Since more than two months have passed since Basil was killed and the Longmont Police apparently have yet to make an arrest, it is difficult to imagine them taking seriously any evidence that a private peeper might supply them. Nevertheless, retaining the services of one may yet prove productive given that Mathews has spoken of instigating a civil lawsuit against Basil's killer.

An even more egregious example of police misconduct concerned a sixteen-year-old white cat named Mr. Solly who was owned by Mary Jo Bland of the West Ham section of East London. The case began on August 20, 2017 when a teenage punk trespassed into her garden and delivered a running kick to Mr. Solly's head.

The force of the blow sent him flying in the air and when he came back down and hit the ground the impact knocked him momentarily unconscious. Rushed to a local veterinarian, Mr. Solly was diagnosed to be in shock and suffering from head trauma, a swollen eye, and injuries to two of his legs. At first Bland did not know what had happened to him but after reviewing surveillance footage she knew that he had been kicked by one punk while an accomplice filmed the assault on his mobile telephone.

She attempted to interest both Scotland Yard and the RSPCA in the investigation but both of them demurred. Despite being pregnant at the time, she took matters into her own hands by canvassing door-to-door for eyewitnesses and additional CCTV footage. She additionally posted the video of the brutal attack as well as photographic stills taken from it online.

Eventually, a member of the public came forward and identified the sixteen-year-old youth who had filmed the attack. On September 18, 2017, he was arrested by Scotland Yard and his telephone seized as evidence.

Just when it belatedly appeared that Mr. Solly's attacker might yet be brought to justice, Scotland Yard stunned Bland and the world in March of 2018 by announcing that, although it had been in possession of the accomplice's telephone for seven months, it had not been able to find the time in order to download its contents. Since in London police officers are required by law to examine such evidence within six-months, Scotland Yard declined to pursue the investigation and Mr. Solly's attacker and his accomplice remain free to this very day.

Kater Lee and His Tracking Collar in 2007

It therefore seems fair to conclude that cops not only refuse to act upon evidence supplied to them on silver platters by private dicks but aggrieved cat owners as well. (See Cat Defender post of December 18, 2018 entitled "The Brutal Attackers of Mr. Solly Walk in a Lark All Because the Rotters at Scotland Yard Were Too Bone-Lazy, Derelict, and Ailurophobic to Even Examine the Evidence Supplied Them by His Distraught Owner.")

As far as a motive in the abduction and slaying of Basil is concerned, none has been explicitly advanced but various officials in Longmont have strongly hinted that she was killed because she had strayed onto the property of a cat-hater. "There's actually no leash law for cats, so they are allowed to go roaming free," Longmont Animal Control Officer Melanie Aizikovitz told KUSA-TV of Denver on September 1st. (See "Cat Shot and Killed, Dumped in St. Vrain Creek.") 

She did not, however, volunteer to join in the hunt for Basil's killer; instead, all that she offered her grieving owners was lip-service. "There are no words to describe how tragic it is. I would say for an animal lover it's equivalent to, you know, caring about a person and them being hurt tragically," she continued to KUSA-TV. "I know a lot of people don't equate animals and humans but they're deserving of health and safety." 

More of the same palaver came from Tori Ashcroft of the Longmont Humane Society. "It's so upsetting and it loses a lot of trust I feel like for people that live in the area," she told KUSA-TV. "Whether people have indoor-outdoor cats, they do expect their cats to be safe (and) the community to protect their animal (sic)."

She went on to declare that her organization accepts receipt of unwanted cats around-the-clock but apparently it leaves the trapping and delivery of them to disgruntled homeowners. "I don't know why they (presumably Basil's killer) would make the decision to do that (kill her) when there are so many alternatives," she added to KUSA-TV. "It's just upsetting."

As for the Longmont Police, a spokesperson for the department told KUSA-TV that homeowners can use either commercial or natural repellents in order to deter cats from coming onto their properties. The department also took this opportunity to remind the public that Animal Control does pick up unwanted cats.

Like all police departments, it concluded by asking the public to do its job for it by identifying Basil's killer. Conspicuously absent from its spiel was anything even remotely resembling a pledge to commit the manpower, financial resources, and expertise required in order to bring Basil's killer to justice.

Press reports have failed to broach the subject of whether Mathews and Lechner had experienced any previous or ongoing disputes with any of their neighbors concerning Basil's and Parsley's roaming. If there had not been any previous trouble, it would appear that her killer struck like a snake in the grass and without any prior warning.

Another way in which to examine this problem is to look at the types of individuals who have been known to steal and kill their neighbors' cats. First and foremost amongst this rogues gallery of despicable cat-killing scumbags are ornithologists, both professionals and amateurs, whose hatred for the species and their owners knows no bounds.   

It additionally is vitally important to know the various methodologies that they employ. First of all, some of them trap their neighbors' cats and then dump them at undisclosed, far away places. They even have been known to taunt the cats' aggrieved owners. (See Cat Defender posts of October 30, 2007 and November 16, 2007 entitled, respectively, "A Crafty Bird Lover Claims Responsibility for Stealing Six Cats from a Southampton Neighborhood and Concealing Their Whereabouts" and "Fletcher, One of the Cats Abducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton.")

Others illegally trap their neighbors' cats and then surrender them to shelters hoping that they will in turn promptly exterminate them. (See Cat Defender posts of June 15, 2006, March 9, 2007 and October 30, 2006 entitled, respectively, "A Serial Cat Killer on Long Island Traps His Neighbor's 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," and "A Collar Saves Turbo from Extermination after He Is Illegally Trapped by Bird-Loving Psychopaths.")

The methodology of choice for many ornithologists, especially mean and miserable old men, is to either kill or blind cats with air guns and rifles. That is precisely what sixty-eight-year-old Eric Reeves of Bradenham Hall Cottages in Bradenham, near Dereham, in Norfolk did to his neighbor's newly-adopted cat, Hartley. (See Cat Defender post of March 9, 2012 entitled "An Amateur Ornithologist Guns Down Hartley with an Air Rifle, Feign Remorse, and Then Cheats Justice by Begging and Lying.")

Some ornithologists hate cats so much that merely killing them is insufficient in order to slake their thirst for feline blood. For example on December 13, 2010, seventy-four-year-old Ernst Bernhard K. of the Moosach section of München trapped a black cat named Rocco that belonged to his neighbor, Andreas O., and over the course of he following eleven days tortured him with pepper spray and water before drowning him in a tub of water.

That supremely evil ornithologist, who grinned throughout his subsequent trial, escaped justice with only a minuscule €500 fine imposed by Judge Gerhard Simon of Landgericht München. (See Cat Defender posts of January 19, 2011, August 8, 2011, and August 17, 2011 entitled, respectively, "A Bird Lover in München Illegally Traps Rocco and Them Methodically Tortures Him to Death over an Eleven-Day Period," "Ernst K.'s Trial for Kidnapping, Torturing, and Murdering Rocco Nears Its Climax in a München Courtroom," and "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.")

 

Gardeners are another group of criminals who routinely steal and kill their neighbors' cats and they are every bit as vile and ruthless as ornithologists. The only real difference in methodology between the two groups is that whereas ornithologists are united worldwide in their hatred of cats and are egged on in the commission of their crimes by such unscrupulous organizations as the National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy, gardeners usually act as individuals and alone.

They do, however, employ many of the same tactics as ornithologists. For instance, they too trap their neighbors' cats and surrender them to shelters in order to do their dirty work for them. (See Cat Defender posts of August 19, 2010 and August 26, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Music Lessons and Buggsey Are Murdered by a Cat-Hating Gardener and an Extermination Factory Posing as an Animal Shelter in Saginaw" and "In Stark Contrast to Ailurophobic America, Ziegelchen's Illegal Trapping by a Gardener in Altstädten-Burbach Is Roundly Condemned in Deutschland.")

Within their ranks they too can boast to having a slew of wicked old men who are armed to the teeth with air guns and air rifles. For example on June 16,2011, seventy-one-year-old Patrick Doyle of Fields Road in the village of Wootton in south Bedford, Bedfordshire, trapped an unidentified cat and then shot it at point-blank range with an air rifle while he still had it in his cage.

Archie's Owners Allowed Him to Sleep in a Road

Mercifully, his neighbor Caroline Benbow-Hunt intervened and freed the cat and it ran away never again to be seen again in the neighborhood. More than likely it died from its wounds. (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 Rifle while Still in Its Cage.") 

In September of 2020, yet still another miserable old fart who likes to potter around in the dirt, eighty-year-old Patrick Medford of Yew Tree Close in Welling in the south London borough of Bexley, seventeen kilometers southeast of London, shot and killed a cat named Ethel with an air rifle. (See MyLondon.com, June 26, 2021, "Bexley Man Who Shot Cat with an Air Rifle Banned from Keeping Pets for Life.") 

Only once in a blue moon are any of the many individuals who blind, maim, and kill cats with air guns and air rifles ever apprehended so their motives are unknown. Nevertheless, these weapons are known to be preferred by ornithologists, gardeners, juveniles, old men, and devil worshipers. (See Cat Defender posts of May 7, 2007, September 27, 2010, July 15, 2022, and October 19, 2022 entitled, respectively, "British Punks Are Having a Field Day Maiming Cats with Air Guns but the Peelers Continue to Look the Other Way," "Caged, Shot Thirty Times with an Air Gun, and Then Tossed into a Bay, Lovey Is Rescued in the Middle of the Night by a Good Samaritan," "Intentionally Blinded in Her Right Eye and Justifiably Scared to Death of People, Candy Cane Is Saved by the Combined Efforts of a Fosterer, a Shelter, and Her New Guardians," and "Gunned Down by an Assailant Armed with an Air Rifle and Left for Dead in a Field on the Isle of Sheppey, Oak Is Saved at the Last Minute by a Good Samaritan," plus This Is Local London, September 16, 2022, "Morden Cat Shot (sic) Loses Eye after Being Shot," My London, October 14, 2022, "Cat Left Blind in One Eye after Being Shot in the Head in South East London," and Kent Online, November 12, 2022, "Faversham Cat Owner's Pets Shot by Air Rifles in Two Separate Incidents Within Weeks")

Considering that the only known use for these weapons is to injure and kill cats, birds, and other small animals, their manufacture, retail sale, and possession constitutes the very epitome of animal cruelty. Yet, they remain legal all over the world and, as opposed to handguns and and assault rifles, absolutely nobody ever seriously complains about them.

It was, however, an unidentified gardener from the Niederembt section of Elsdorf, thirty kilometers west of Köln in Nordrhein Westfalen, who outdid not only his fellow sodbusters but ornithologists as well by placing both a Nagelbrett as well as a board outfitted with mouse traps in his garden in order to harm cats. (See Cat Defender post of June 10, 2010 entitled "A Cat-Hating Gardener in Nordrhein Westfalen Is Told by the Local Authorities to Remove a Board of Nails from His Yard.")

Besides ornithologists and gardeners, innumerable individuals steal and kill their neighbors' cats out of nothing more than sheer hatred of the species. (See Cat Defender posts of January 10, 2014 and February 28, 2018 entitled, respectively, "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" 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.")

Some individuals even have gone as far as to trespass into their neighbors' yards in order to kill their cats. That is precisely what sixty-eight-year-old Larry Negard of 6008 Tracy Lane in Bossier City, Louisiana, did to no fewer than ten of them that belonged to his next-door neighbors, Randy and Patsy Hamilton.

He was so clever that they never once suspected him until they had installed a surveillance camera and subsequently caught him flagrante delicto. Once his case finally came to trial, another stench-of-the-bench, this time around E. Charles Jacobs, let him off with a measly ten days in the clink. Presumably, that was one day of penance for each cat that he had killed. (See The Bossier Press Tribune, March 4, 2016, "Bossier City Man Jailed for Killing Neighbor's Cat (sic).")

More recently, some perverts have come up with a new reason for stealing, torturing, and killing their neighbors' cats: sex. For example, that was one of the motivations behind the killing spree of convicted San Jose Cat Killer, Robert Roy Farmer. (See KGO-TV of San Francisco, articles dated October 8, 2015, July 14, 2017, and March 4, 2022 and entitled, respectively, "Man Accused of Kidnapping, Killing Cats in San Jose," "Mixed Emotions after San Jose Cat Killer Sentenced to Sixteen Years in Jail," and "San Jose Man Who Tortured, Killed at Least Twenty-One Cats Released a Month Early into Supervised Program.") 

Hopefully Basil was not abused in such a fashion but the public never will know unless her killer is apprehended and forced to face the music in a court of law.

It thus seems clear that neither the police, humane groups, nor the courts are ever going to contribute anything even remotely worthwhile toward either protecting the lives and liberties of cats or in bringing their abusers and killers to justice. Although it should be axiomatic to any thinking individual, the same is true of technology.

First of all, GPS tracking collars like the one that Mathews and Lechner outfitted Basil with are hardly anything new. For instance, transplanted German engineer Jürgen Perthold of Anderson, South Carolina, invented one way back in 2007.

He then placed it around the neck of his cat, Lee, and turned him loose to go a wandering all by his lonesome. It is not known how long that he lasted lugging around the thirty-five gram camera but it would be a miracle if he were still alive today. (See Cat Defender post of June 11, 2007 entitled "Katzen-Kameras Are Not Only Cruel and Inhumane but Represent an Assault Upon Cats' Liberty and Privacy.")  

Later in 2014, Iain Simpson and Clare Smith of Quarrington, a suburb of Sleaford in Lincolnshire in the East Midlands, equipped their four-year-old cat, Archie, with a tracking collar manufactured by G-Paws. As a result of data collected by it they soon learned that he was in the alarming habit of sleeping for up to two hours each night in the middle of the A15. 

"He's a fearless tyke really. The data from is tracker shows him being stationary in the middle of the road for hours at a time, " Simpson told the Sleaford Target on March 20, 2014. (See "Britain's Bravest Pet: Missing Cat Sleeps in the Middle of A15, According to Archie's GPS Collar.") "I can only assume he's gone to sleep. Maybe the sound of the traffic relaxes him. I don't know."

He then went on to state that although it was a thrill for him to spy on Archie, he was somewhat worried by his rambles. "I've been fascinated with tracking Archie, but it's so worrying," he added to the Sleaford Target. "It's like worrying about a teenager on a night out. I know he's gone out but he'll never tell me where."

It thus appeared at the time that Simpson's love of snooping had taken precedence over his concerns for Archie's safety.  "I do know that he always comes back the next morning for his breakfast none the wiser that I had been absolutely terrified for him," he summed up to the Sleaford Target. "He's probably Britain's bravest pet; he's certainly braver than me."

King Loui I on the Campus of RWTH in 2017

Dave Evans, the inventor of G-Paws, was every bit as callous. "This just goes to show the secret lives of our pets is (sic) much more diverse than we could ever imagine," he crowed like a bantam rooster to the Sleaford Target.

On the contrary, what the examples of Archie, Kater Lee, and Basil demonstrate is the uncaring and selfish attitudes of their owners and the insatiable greed of capitalists such as Evans. With such disgraceful owners as Simpson and Smith, it is difficult to imagine that Archie lived much longer. (See Cat Defender post of March 29, 2017 entitled "Archie Is Knowingly Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Content with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite.")

As bad as that was, their neglect of Archie pales in comparison to the shameful exploitation that King Loui I experienced at the hands of his thirty-six-year-old owner, Nadine Biewer of Aachen in Nordrhein Westfalen. After having equipped him with a GPS tracking collar, she would drop him off each morning on the sprawling campus of Rheinisch Westfälische Technische Hochschule in the Innenstadt and turn him loose to be watched over by the school's forty-four-thousand students, its professors, and staff. She would not even bother to come come back and collect him until sometime in the evening.

The consequences of her playing of Russian roulette with his fragile life were predictable. Once he wandered into a delivery van and was missing for days. On another occasion he was forced to go to a veterinarian after a student had sickened him by feeding him a load of Dönerkebab und Eis.

In late July of 2017, a cancerous growth was found underneath his tongue and Biewer promptly had him killed off by a veterinarian on August 22nd. He was only five years old.

"Manchmal muss ein König ablegen, damit ihm Flügel wachsen konnen!" is how that she chose to eulogize him on August 22nd on the Facebook page entitled Aachener Campuskatze. "Gute Reise, kliener Schatz. Ich werde dich immer lieben!!!"

What an outrageous load of crap! The only things that she ever has loved have been fame and fortune.

In fact, that is why that she equipped him with a tracking collar in the first place. Specifically, she exploited him in order to collect data not only for her Facebook page but also for a tome entitled Die Fellnasenbande Hinter auf dem Gartenzaun which she published under the Schriffstellername of Dina Bell.

"Loui hat sein Leben, auch wenn es viel zu kurz war, in vollen Zügen genossen und werde vor der ersten bis zur letzten Sekunde geliebt," she added September 2nd on Facebook. "Dieses Glück sollten jeden Tier gewährt werden."

That pretty much says it all. In addition to being callous and irresponsible, she quite obviously is crazy as well.

Such an asinine statement as that makes one wonder if her other resident feline, Mia, is still alive or if she has been shanghaied into serving as the guinea pig that Biewer lost when King Loui I died. (See Cat Defender posts of July 12, 2017 an September 15, 2017 entitled, respectively, "A Death Watch Has Begun for King Loui I Who Has Been Abandoned to Wander the Dangerous Streets of Aachen by His Derelict Owner and the Ingrates at RWTH" and "King Loui I's Days of Roaming the Perilous Streets of Aachen Come to a Sad End Shortly after He Is Diagnosed with Inoperable Throat Cancer.")

A beautiful four-year-old, ginger-colored female named Nala also has been fitted with a GPS tracking collar and turned loose by her owner to hang out at the train station in Stevenage, forty-three kilometers north of London in Hertfordshire. She usually stops by mornings and afternoons in order to greet commuters and she  additionally sometimes visits a leisure park next door.

Her guardian, Natasha Ambler, publicly professes not to be the least bit concerned about her safety. "Not at all," she told the BBC on October 29th. (See "Stevenage Railway Cat Nala 'Breaks Down Barriers' at Rush Hour.") "She's obviously well-loved and she's happy doing what she does."

In one of her saner moments, however, she did sound a cautionary note. "I just hope one day she doesn't actually try to get on a train," she added to the BBC.

All bravado aside, Ambler is an exceedingly foolish woman considering that Nala already has wandered into a movie theatre where she was forced to spend the night. She therefore could just as easily board one of the East Coast Main Line trains that service the station and operate between King's Cross in London to the south and Edinburgh in the north.

Secondly, she could be stolen. Thirdly, she could be fed something that she should not ingest and as a result end up like King Loui I.

Fourthly, she could be either electrocuted on the tracks or run over by a locomotive as happened to Neko on January 2nd at Gare Montparnasse in Paris. (See Cat Defender post of July 23, 2023 entitled "Arguing That He Was Only a Cat, the French National Railroad, SNCF, Proceeds to Run Down and Kill Neko at Gare Montparnasse in Paris and, Unbelievably, Is Allowed to Get Away with Its Heinous Crime.")

Nala at the Turnstiles in the Train Station in Stevenage

Quite obviously, tracking collars do not afford cats so much as a scintilla of protection against the machinations of those individuals who are intent upon doing them harm. Secondly, they do not prevent them from ingesting substances that could kill them, such as antifreeze. (See Cat Defender post of October 6, 2023 entitled "A Much Ballyhooed New Law Produces the Same Old Perverted Justice as Cardiff Crown Court Allows Tristian Paul Pearson to Get Away Scot-Free with Poisoning to Death Bailey and Luna with Antifreeze" and the Gainesville Sun, October 12, 2023, "Gainesville Business Owner Arrested, Admits Killing Neighbor's Cats with Antifreeze.")

Thirdly, they do not protect cats from motorists who deliberately run them down for sport. Fourthly, they do not protect cats from such prolific and ubiquitous predators as dogs, foxes, raccoons, skunks, and birds of prey such as owls, eagles, and hawks. In Basil's case, her life was additionally threatened by the presence of coyotes, black bears, and cougars. 

Mathews and Lechner were by no means ignorant of the myriad of dangers that they were subjecting her to by allowing her to roam all by her lonesome both day and night. Au contraire, like Ambler with Nala, Biewer with King Loui I, Simpson and Smith with Archie, and Perthold with Kater Lee, they simply placed having a presence on social media and all that comes with it above Basil's health and safety.

Although the callousness of all these individuals is inexcusable, they are far from being the only offenders in that regard. For example, The New York Times reported on June 22, 2019 that on Instagram alone there are two-hundred-eighty-five-thousand posts about adventure cats. (See "Does Fluffy Really Want to Be an Adventure Cat?")

Many of the same safety concerns that are leveled against tracking collars are equally applicable to implanted microchips. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

Plus, they have additional demerits. For instance, they have been linked to cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is Time for Digital Angel® and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.") 

Secondly, some cats have been left paralyzed whereas others have sustained severe beatings by professionals who did not know how to properly implant them. (See Cat Defender posts of April 28, 2016 and June 23, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Horribly Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders" and "The State of North Carolina's Veterinary Division Is Covering Up a Savage Beating Dished Out to Cooper at the Rowan County Animal Shelter During the Course of a Microchipping Fiasco.")`

Thirdly, there are multiple problems associated with the databases that these chips are linked up to as well as the policies of their administrators. (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2017 entitled "Tigger Is Finally Reunited with His Family Despite the Best Efforts of the Administrators of a Microchip Database to Keep Them Apart.")

Fourthly, in spite of what their proponents argue, microchips only rarely fulfill their intended purpose. For example, many shelters and Animal Control Officers think so little of cats that they do not even bother to scan those that are either surrendered to them or trapped by them. They simply whack them on the spot.

Also, many shelters are too incompetent to even locate these devices. Thus, by substituting these pernicious devices for more effective collars and tags, many owners are initialing their cats' death warrants. (See WCAU-TV of Philadelphia, December 15, 2017, "Animal Shelter Euthanizes Man's Cat after Failing to Find Microchip" and WALA-TV of Mobile, May 14, 2008, "Cat's Microchip Didn't Save It from Being Euthanized.")

Even when they do help to reunite lost cats with their owners, it is sometimes ten to eighteen years or more down the road before they work their magic. (See Cat Defender posts of October 16, 2023, May 23,2022, and January 9, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Daisy Is Found in Poor Health Wandering the Forbidding Streets of Caerphilly Eleven Years after She Vanished Without So Much as a Trace," "Tilly Is Returned to Her Owner after a Seventeen and One-Half Year Separation but Their Reunion Is Destined to Be, Sadly, a Brief and Bittersweet One," and "Marley Is Reunited with Her Family after Having Gone Missing Nine Years Ago but Her Deliverance Does Not Establish Either the Efficacy or Desirability of Microchipping Cats.")

Yet, in spite of all of that it is the lies that endure. "With a microchip anyone who stumbles upon your cat thinking that it is missing (or if your cat has gone missing) can easily scan the chip to locate you," Sam Hindman of A to Z Animals of Lakewood, Colorado, wrote on October 24th.  (See "Seven Tips to Help Your Cat Safely Explore the Outdoors.") 

Although his article is in many ways helpful, on that particular point he is badly mistaken. With rare exceptions, only shelters and veterinarians have scanners.

Some of the former will scan cats free of charge but it is highly doubtful that the latter ever would be quite so obliging. In any event, individuals who come upon cats that they believe to be homeless must, in most cases, first purchase a trap and then go to the trouble of snaring them. Next, they need to transport them to either shelters or veterinarians in order to have them scanned. 

Very few individuals are willing to go to that amount of expense and bother and, in such cases, that is actually a good thing considering that the vast majority of cats that are turned over to shelters and veterinarians are killed. They accordingly are far better off braving the perils of the street.

At the behest of Cats Protection in Hayward Heath, West Sussex, and other humane groups, all cats residing in England and Wales are now required by law to be microchipped but precious little good and a world of mischief are all that is destined to result from this ill-advised legislation. Most notably, it will be used in order to punish owners who allow their cats out-of-doors and that will lead to many more cats becoming homeless and ultimately exterminated by shelters.

Sadly, Beautiful Basil Has Climbed Her Last Tree 

Even surveillance cameras are problematic. Although they were of tremendous assistance to Mary Jo. Bland and the Hamiltons in their efforts to determine what had happened to their cats, they did not contribute anything of value to the efforts of Ollie Wilson and Laura King of Hove in East Sussex to locate their beloved Mr. Cheeky. (See Cat Defender post of February 8, 2017 entitled "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

Even worse, these cameras are used by ornithologists and other cat-haters in order to assist them in the trapping and killing of their neighbors' cats. For example, that is precisely what another wicked old man, seventy-one-year-old Philip Gregory Tripp of King Street in Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, did to his neighbor's beautiful cat, Mango, in 2021. (See Cat Defender posts of November 28, 2021 and March 30, 2022 entitled, respectively, "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" and "Philip Gregory Tripp Wins Again in Court as Another Ailurophobic Judge, Bereft of Even an Iota of Justice, Reduces His Sentence for Stealing and Drowning Mango.")

So, why does this utterly insane love of applying technology to cats not only endure but continue to expand exponentially? First of all, the manufacturers of GPS tracking collars and microchips are making a bundle by peddling these utterly worthless protection devices to cat owners.

Secondly, shelters and veterinarians also are cashing in on the microchipping craze, but not on GPS tracking collars. Thirdly, these types of technology provide the authorities with another means of shoving their long, dirty schnozes into the lives of cats and their owners.

Fourthly and worst of all, this technology is providing a means for owners to exploit their cats for both fame and fortune while simultaneously neglecting their moral obligation to protect and safeguard their fragile lives.

Wildlife biologists, ornithologists, the tyrannical United States Government, and the degree mills already have been for decades employing microchips, radio collars, and camera traps in order control and to kill off scores of wildlife and now they are training their sights on cats as well as their owners and caretakers. (See Cat Defender posts of April 17, 2006, May 4, 2006, February 29, 2008, and May 21, 2009 entitled, respectively, "Hal the Central Park Coyote Is Suffocated to Death by Wildlife Biologists Attempting to Tag Him," "The Scientific Community's Use of High-Tech Surveillance Is Aimed at Subjugating, Not Saving, the Animals," "The Repeated Hounding Down and Tagging of Walruses Exposes Electronic Surveillance as Not Only Cruel but a Fraud," and "Macho B., America's Last Jaguar, Is Illegally Tapped, Radio-Collared, and Killed Off by Wildlife Biologists in Arizona.")

After having self-anointed themselves as lords of the universe, these fascists and totalitarians are working night and day in order to monitor and control all animals as well as the human race. By doing so, they and they alone are going to be able one day to arbitrarily determine which animals and humans are going to be allowed to go on living and under what conditions.

"It goes without saying that Basil was not 'just a cat' in our family. She was my baby, my 'little angel' who chose me and I chose her," is how that an obviously brokenhearted Mathews later eulogized her in an undated article that appears on "Justice for Basil." "We agreed that life was simply better when we shared it together."

In that regard, there can be little doubt that while it lasted life was indeed very good for both Basil and her guardians. "Basil defied what cats do. She hiked, she biked, she loved camping with me," Mathews disclosed to KDVR-TV of Denver on September 4th. (See "Longmont Couple Says Their Cat Was Abducted, Shot, and Dumped in River (sic).") "We truly lived the Norwegian life in that sense."

Although that is largely true, the disturbing fact of the matter is that neither Mathews nor Lechner were there for her when she needed them the most and that is an omission that they are destined to carry with them to their graves. It is too late for them to do anything for her now, but the situation is entirely different as far as Parsley is concerned.

Hopefully, they no longer allow her to go outside without supervision and, above all, have thrown her tracking collar in the trash. They have plenty of garden space at their house and it would be easy enough for them to fence in some of it and to string a net across the top in order to keep Parsley safe while still providing her with a taste of the outdoors. In order to ward off dogs, coyotes, and other predators, they might also want to consider stringing an electrified wire along the outside perimeter of the enclosure.

"Justice for Basil" quickly raised US$10,376 which is being used to pay for the services of the private peeper working the case. Mathews has already earmarked any funds that are left over for the cats at the Longmont Humane Society and for the creation of a memorial to Basil. 

Even in her darkest hour, she has been buoyed by the outpouring of support that she has received from the community. "I hope her (Basil's) soul sees the love and support from the community," she mused to KDVR-TV in the article cited supra. "And I hope that her legacy lives beyond what an amazing animal she was and that she can be a name that takes a stand against aggravated animal cruelty."

That and possibly a civil lawsuit against Basil's killer appear to be pretty much her only alternatives now that the Longmont Police apparently have decided not to act.

It has not been disclosed if Basil's remains have been returned to Mathews and Lechner or if the Longport Police is still holding onto them as evidence. It therefore can only be hoped that if they have not been already returned to them that they soon will be so as to provide them with an opportunity to give her a fitting memorial service and a proper burial with a tombstone.

In conclusion, being owned by a cat changes everything. Above all, guardians cannot have it both ways.

They cannot continue to carry on with their shekel-chasing and socializing ways just as if nothing new has occurred in their lives. Just as equipping a cat with either a GPS tracker or a microchip and then turning it loose to roam the streets unattended is not the answer, neither is cruelly locking it up alone all day indoors.

Rather, guardians need to find some middle ground in order to keep their cats both safe and happy at the same time and in that regard neither technology nor the law enforcement community are of any positive benefit. A failure to do so means only one thing and that is that the myriad of cat abusers and killers that this and all other societies cradle and suckle in their malignant bosoms are going to continue to always win.

Photos: KUSA-TV (Basil with Mathews, Basil with Lechner, and a map of the killer's route), Jürgen Perthold (Kater Lee), the Sleaford Target (Archie), BuzzFeed (King Loui I), Adventures of Nala (Nala), and KDVR-TV (Basil climbing a tree).