2 teens charged after pair of horses shot, 1 dead, in Hardin County

Lauren Adams reporting for WLKY Louisville, writes:

HARDIN COUNTY, Ky. — Roy Wright has spent most of his 81 years around horses. He currently has two — Two Buck and Generator. But Generator, he said, isn’t the same horse she was just a few months ago.

Her demeanor, Wright said, changed after she was shot once through the neck last fall.

In November, when Generator and another horse, Sarge were out in the pasture of his Elizabethtown farm, they were shot. Wright was the one to discover Sarge dead the following morning.

“I came back to the house and got my tractor. When I picked him up and saw the other side of him, got to examine him, I saw he’d been shot four times. Four times,” Wright said, adding he thinks of that morning daily.

Sheriff John Ward, whose agency handled the investigation, told WLKY, “We didn’t know why and I can’t imagine Mr. Wright having any enemies. He’s a fine gentleman and we couldn’t figure out what anybody would want to do that to him.”

But, Ward said, thanks to some good detective work, police were able to charge two Radcliff teens, 17 and 19, on Wednesday.

Ward said both teens had been in trouble before. In fact, the 17-year-old was already at a juvenile detention center, on unrelated charges. He and Ethan Woods, 19, are charged with animal cruelty and criminal mischief. Woods is also charged with unlawful transaction with a minor.

“From what we can determine, they were just driving down the road, saw the animals, stopped and shot two horses,” Ward said when asked if the teens had a motive.

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POSTSCRIPT: The reason we are beginning to report these types of shootings is because they have begun to increase at an alarming rate across the country. Some are beginning to call them copycat shootings. — Tuesday’s Horse, the Fund for Horses official blog.

2nd horse shot in same Lexington area where another horse was killed

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) — Lexington police are trying to find who’s responsible for the shooting of a horse near the Fayette-Jessamine County line off Tates Creek Road.

A surgeon taking care of the horse tells WKYT the shooting happened in the very early morning hours of Monday. That’s when she was called for a horse with blood around his face.

The bullet nearly shattered the horse’s jaw bone.

“If the bullet had been, say, four inches higher she would not be alive at this time,” Dr. Liz Barrett said. “So it basically entered through the front of her nose and came out the back just behind her jaw.”

The horse is now being cared for at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute by Barrett and her team.

The shooting is the second like it to happen in this area. Another horse was shot and killed at Springhouse Farm in 2018.

Officers are now trying to find out who is responsible, why this happened and whether or not it’s connected to the one at Springhouse Farm.

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact Lexington police.

The main number for the Lexington Police Department is (859) 258-3600.

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2 horses rescued after 20 mysteriously killed in Kentucky

Li Cohen reporting for CBS News writes:

Animal rescue workers have saved a pregnant mare and her colt from an abandoned strip mine site in eastern Kentucky where 20 horses were recently found fatally shot over a period of six days. The two rescued horses have been taken to a local equine humane society.The two horses were rescued Friday night by Dumas Rescue and law enforcement. Lori Redmon, the humane society’s president and CEO, told The Associated Press the colt is doing fine but the mare is thin and stressed.

“She was sweating and her breathing was labored, so our primary concern was getting her stabilized and relaxed,” she said. “She is heavy in foal and we didn’t want her to go into premature labor due to stress.”

Dumas Rescue posted a video of the two horses on Facebook, saying, “I feel like we have closed a door on their past and Kentucky Humane Society Equine CARE has opened a door to their future.”

The fatally shot horses were found along U.S. 23 near the border between Pike and Floyd counties in eastern Kentucky. Of the 20 horses found dead [  ], two were pregnant and five belonged to nearby residents. The others are believed to have been wild horses that frequented the abandoned strip mine. Law enforcement believes they were hunted with a low-caliber rifle.

“This is very inhumane and it’s a very cruel act of somebody who just apparently had nothing else to do, or whatever. Just to go back on a strip job and shoot down horses who were, one of them obviously was feeding, had grass in its mouth,” Sheriff John Hunt said. “It looked like a battlefield for just horses.”

Officials are currently offering a reward of over $20,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for killing the horses.

FLOYD COUNTY SHERIFF OFFICE
Ph: (606) 886-6711

PIKE COUNTY SHERIFF OFFICE
Ph: (606) 432-6260

Six more dead horses found in Kentucky killing spree

Update: Before you go away, there is a Petition you may be interested in signing.

As many of you have already heard, a rescue group helping with the investigation of horse deaths in Floyd County have reported that an additional six horses have been found dead.

This increases the number of horses who have been shot and killed to 20* of varying ages with some in foal — or pregnant — who aborted when shot.

Dumas Rescue posted on their Facebook page:

“I cannot put into words how heartbroken and disgusted I am, knowing the person(s) responsible for this massacre still at large. I know these pictures are hard to look at, and even harder to stomach but this is reality. This is the truth. Please continue to share their story, we are their only voice. They deserve justice and someone out there knows who did this.”

It appears that the horses were made to panic and run, and then hunted down and killed. Regardless, these murders were “pleasure” killings.

The crime scene — deep in Appalachia’s coal country — is so desolate that the only way in or out is by all-terrain vehicle. There are no paved roads to speak of.

It was there, on a decommissioned strip mine site in Floyd County in Eastern Kentucky, that the local sheriff and the head of an animal welfare group said that they had made a grisly discovery . . . 14 horses had been shot to death.

Some of the horses had gunshot wounds to the head and others to the heart and lung areas, according to the authorities.

A handful of horses were privately owned; the others were free-roaming.

Money has poured in. A reward of $20,000 is now being offered for any information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons responsible.

If the killer has not left the area, then he is being harbored by someone. Anyone who can commit such atrocities is in our opinion extremely dangerous and must be turned in to the authorities, regardless of their connection to the killer — family, friend or employer.

The horror of these horse killings are making headlines around the world. Forget the bounty. Anyone knowing anything that can help lead to the arrest of the killer must step up. Now. It is the right thing to do.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Floyd County Sheriff’s Dept
149 S Central Ave
Prestonsburg, KY 41653
Phone No: 606-886-6711

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Megan Goble