Walter In Denver

A Case Study on Media Frenzy and Mass Hysteria

The cat mutilation story that had been a major local story for some time has now become a national and even international story in the past days. 45 cat corpses, or parts thereof, have been found around the Denver area over the last year. The popular theory is that a young man or group of young men have been roaming around snatching cats and cutting them to pieces. These men are seriously disturbed and will soon turn to killing people.

I had been disinterestedly following the story, but a few days ago when authorities announced the dead cat count was over 40, my BS detector sounded a quiet alarm. How could anyone kill so many over a relatively short amount of time without being detected? Is there a chance most of these incidents have an alternate explanation? The cats have been found as far as the towns of Parker and Lafayette, which are about 46 miles apart by highway. My first suspicion went to the wildlife that lives in the metro area. Even the most crowded inner parts of the city harbor some very non-tame wildlife. I've seen coyotes, hawks, and eagles in urban settings around town, even a fox on a street within a mile of the downtown skyscrapers.
I read the claims of bizarrely dissected cat carcasses:

In many cases, the cat was disemboweled with what appeared to be surgical precision. Some were also decapitated or cut in half.
Carol DeYoung lost her 13-year-old tabby, Mozart, a few days before Halloween last year. Days later she was called in to identify Mozart's head.
"There is absolutely no way that was done by an animal," she said Wednesday. "It was a scalpel wound, it was done by a scalpel."

I don't know what poor Ms. DeYoung's background might be, but for the most part we're talking about city folks here, people who don't see a lot of dead and decomposing animals. I'd wager that most couldn't tell the difference between a cat part that had been cut off and one that had been bitten off. I doubt I could tell the difference, and I spend more time in the outdoors than most of my neighbors. Nevertheless, most of the people I talk to think there's someone out there killing lots of cats.

Well, much to my bemusement the media frenzy has heightened in the last week. Yesterday the story really took off when Katie Couric interviewed one of the unfortunate cat owners. Reporters from all over are filing reports from from the Denver suburb of Aurora, where most of the cats have been found. Here's one from the Sydney Morning Herald (yes, that Sydney):

By David Kelly in Aurora, Colorado
July 5 2003
Bugsy was a tough cat who could stare down a fox and run like a rabbit. But one night the tabby met something darker and more menacing than a fox, something he could not outrun.
The next morning Christy Hughes found her 5 kilogram cat dead on the lawn.
"I can't get the visual out of my head," a shaken Hughes recalled, looking at the spot where Bugsy lay two weeks ago. "It's sick."
The cat had been dissected with near surgical precision. No one heard or saw anything.

No, sorry, a fox wouldn't have much trouble with a house cat. No one heard anything? Go figure. From the same story:

Police have not ruled out that the attacks may be part of an adolescent prank, initiation rite or even the work of predatory animals. The most alarming possibility though, is that they could be a precursor to attacks on humans.
Cat corpses are turning up almost every day.

Ah yes, the initiation rite. At least the writer didn't mention Satanists. Note how 45 cats spread over a year became 'almost every day.'
More from the Rocky:

Humans were involved in the mutilation of at least 37 of 45 dead cats found in the metro area in the past year, investigators said Wednesday.

Oh. Can I assume that at least eight of the 45 had no sign of human involvement? Why mention the number 45 at all?
Now comes an expert to throw cold water on all the fun. From yesterday's Rocky:

The nation's leading expert in animal mutilations said he'd be shocked if humans are responsible for recent cat mutilations - saying wildlife is the likely culprit.
"We have a database that has several thousand animal-cruelty cases, and frankly, we have never identified a case in which one or two or three people sequentially kill a large number of animals, or specifically cats," said Dr. Randall Lockwood, Humane Society of the United States vice president of research and educational outreach and co-author of a book on animal forensics.

Dr. Lockwood has not been very popular with the press. The Denver Post quotes him in this article, which downplays the likelyhood of natural predators as an explanation, but does include this passage:

Police say necropsies and other evidence suggest human involvement in 37 cat deaths.
That number might be generous. Maybe even hysterical. Gould and Lockwood agree that in necropsies it is often hard to tell the difference between a wound made with a sharp tooth and a sharp knife.
As a crime-solving tool, said Gould, necropsies aren't as reliable as human autopsies.

I haven't seen any national press quoting Dr. Lockwood.

The Denver Post also published a map showing the locations of the cats. (Click the link, then scroll down to see the map.) The Rocky published a more detailed map, not available online, which shows the central cluster in Aurora. See the blue area near most of the cats? That's Cherry Creek reservoir, a state park. There's lots of wildlife there. Just north of the park, on the other side of I-225, is Kennedy golf course. The Rocky's map shows several of the cats were found just off the golf course.

This has special significance to me. Kennedy golf course was my employer for about eight years.

Kennedy golf course is home for a number of coyotes, sometimes as many as a half dozen at a time. I suspect that these animals have developed a taste for kitty.

(This sounds like first-hand blogger reporting.-Ed.) (Why, yes, it is.-W.)

My best guess is only a handful of the cases are actually human caused, if any.

Posted by Walter at July 4, 2003 02:28 PM