School police seek leads in cat mutilations

Three cats were mutilated, their heads severed and their remains left on three different school grounds the last day of school in what Clark County School District Police are calling sacrificial rituals.

Custodians at each of the schools -- Burkholder Junior High, McCaw Elementary and Basic High -- arrived on the campuses Thursday morning and found the dead cats, said Sgt. Ken Young, school police spokesman. The remains were found on the school grounds, not inside the buildings, he said. All of the schools are in Henderson.

At one of the schools, someone wrote the numbers "666" in blood on the outside wall of the school, he said.

Young said investigators believe the crimes were done as if by Satanic worshipers.

The carcasses were removed by custodians before the students arrived on campus, Young said.

"When we see it happen at school, it's a big concern," he said. "We don't want our younger kids to see something like that."

The killings are being investigated as one crime "because the style of the killings," he said.

If the perpetrators are found, they will be charged with animal cruelty. But Young said Monday that school police did not have any leads.

archive