FBI file: Animal Mutilation, Animal Mutilation Part 04

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

January 31, 1979

PROX: SPDCH

SUBJECT: Steer Nutilation, January 29, 1979, Torrance County, NM.

Sergeant O'Dell of the Torrance County Sheriff's Department called the Albuquerque Office early in the afternoon of January 29, 1979, to report that he had discovered the first reported cattle mutilation in Torrance County, and wanted information on whom he should report it to. SFDOM called O'Dell and was told the following:

In response to a telephone call from Samuel N. Hindi, O'Dell arrived at a location near the village of Duran, 124, at approximately 11 a.m. on January 29, 1979, and found the carcass of a six month old steer that had apparently been recently mutilated. O'Dell said the carcass was still warm enough to melt the snow around it. O'Dell indicated that he had been following news reports of previous mutilations in Rio Arriba County and believed that the Torrance County mutilation was the "freshest" ever discovered. He called because he thought it would be helpful for investigators to have a fresh mutilation to examine and subject to tests.

O'Dell said the steer's scrotum and penis had been removed with surgical precision -- a feature common to all previous mutilations -- and indicated that patches of hair around the carcass seemed to indicate that the steer had been dropped or bounced -- another feature common to all previous mutilations. The steer's intestines had been removed through the hole where the scrotum had been cut out, but were not disturbed. O'Dell felt that an animal would have gone directly to the intestines. The steer's tongue was not removed as in previous mutilations, but the insides of the ears appeared to have been "beveled" out with a sharp instrument.

D'Dell notified the state Game and Fish Department, the State Police Crime Lab in Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Livestock Board. The State Police Crime Lab apparently notified State Police Officer Gabe Valdez of Chama, the officer who has investigated most of the mutilations over the past 19 months. In the interim, the Livestock Board removed the carcass and apparently froze it. Valdez later contacted the Torrance County Sheriff and was to have gone to Torrance County on January 30 to investigate.

In response to your question about whether any of the mutilations have occurred on federal land, Officer Valdez informs me that eight mutilations were discovered on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, and seven on the Santa Clara Pueblo. There have been a total of 65 cattle mutilations, and six horse mutilations, reported in New Mexico since 1975. Forty-five of the cattle mutilations and four of the horse mutilations occurred in 1978.