FBI file: Animal Mutilation, Animal Mutilation Part 03

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# Mutilated Cow is Discovered in Dulce Area

Journal Special

DULCE — A mutilated cow — the seventh in the area this year — has been found near Dulce and a State Police officer says he believeth he has found evidence the cattle are being transported elsewhere for the mutilations and the carcasses returned to the animals! home pastures the same night.

The carcase of the most recent mutilation was discovered Wednesday. The udder and the rectum of a 4-year-old Hereford cow had been savored, and a portion of the lower lip was missing

Investigators estimate the mutilation occurred Monday night. On the same date exactly 2 years ago, a carcass and a series of mysterious tracks were discovered in the area. Stato Police officer Gabe Valdez said the carcass this week was located within 500 yards of where the carcass was found in the 1976 case.

Valdez said he could not discern any tracks in the area of the Monday night mutilation, nor could he find any footprints left by the mutilated cow.

In examining the carcass, Valdox said he found that the left front leg and the left rear leg had been fractured. He said he could clearly perceive indentations in the flesh, near the fractures, and he believed they were left by clamps attached to the animal's legs.

eleonwhere. Ha. belloves the cattle are airlifted from the pasture during the night, taken to a secluded area, muti- lated and returned to the pasture.

"You could tell where these clamps or vices were attached," he said. "I'm positive they do their work somewhere else."

The cow, he said, was lying on its right side and there was no evidence of a struggle. Only a minimal amount of blood was near the body.

Valdez said the animal's vortabrae were broken.

Thursday afternoon, a Paris, Texas, team of investigators — recently formed to probe multifacial plaguing ranches throughout the West for the past three years — arrived in Dulce to examine the alta and the carcass.

The mutilation occurred on Manuel Gomez ranch, in a pasture 13 miles east of Dulco. Gomez has lost four cattle to mutilations since 1971. There have been a total of 10 mutilations in the area during the past two years.

Repeatedly frustrated in attempts to unravel the mutilation cases, Valdex Thursday said he intends to assemble most of the Gomez cattle "to see if they are being marked in any way that can be identified in the darkness."

He said a retired scientist in Albuquerque is assembling a device to examine the cattle. "We'll get the hard in a corral and run them through the squeean chute and see if we can find anything." Valdez said. He said expects to conduct the experiment next week.