Motive for horse killings unclear to residents, activists

RENO, Nev. - The arrests of two Marines and their high-school buddy for the slaughter of wild horses east of town brought a sigh of relief from residents and high praise for some nifty police work.

But it's done little to answer the nagging question on the minds of everyone - from military officers and criminal investigators to horse advocates and average citizens who helped raise a $35,000 reward:

Why?

"I still just cannot comprehend the mentality that could have done this," said Lydia Hammack, president of the Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association.

"It's just so scary to know there are people like that out in the world with no regard for life," she said.

For many locals, it would make more sense if the men who picked off 34 horses with high-powered rifles were outsiders who didn't appreciate the beauty of the mustangs or their symbolism of Western heritage.

But the three suspects accused of "maiming or killing" the horses are in fact homegrown.

Anthony Merlino, 20, Scott Brendle, 21, and Darien Brock, 20, went to high school together in Reno. Brendle and Brock - two Marines based in California - were back in town on holiday leave when the horses were shot Dec. 27, authorities said.

"I wish it was a stranger from some other side of the world,' said Jeanne Gregory, a member of the neighborhood homeowners association where Merlino grew up.

"The brutality was so awful. I just can't believe they lived here," said Gregory, who attended Merlino's arraignment Friday.

Sheriff's deputies roped off a square block around the courthouse, built in 1876 on a hillside of the mining town above the Bucket of Blood Saloon.

"We have an obvious concern for the safety of the defendant," Storey County Sheriff Pat Whitten said. "It is an emotional trial."

The case has shaken animal activists internationally. It's been part of the daily banter in the Reno area since the string of horse carcasses was found on the hillside about 5 miles east of town.

Some of the horses had been tortured. Others limped away and died over the course of a few days, or were put to death by authorities who found them critically injured.

The day after the arrests, a disc jockey at a Reno radio station dedicated the song "Chestnut Mare" by the Byrds to the law officers "who caught those horse guys.

"What a bunch of maggots," the DJ said.

Merlino has maintained his innocence. Brock told a TV station he was present when the other two shot one horse but doesn't know anything about the other 33 horses.

"I watched my two friends kill this horse without doing anything about it. Yes, that is wrong. That is what I'm going to court for. But we did not kill 34 horses that night," Brock said.

"If they had told me they had made plans to go out and kill ... 34 horses that night, then I would have stepped in and said something," he said.

Stories told by neighbors depict Merlino as someone who could easily have been involved in the shooting.

Neighbors said he blasted small birds with a shotgun in the front yard, fired guns inside his apartment and gutted a deer on his living room carpet.

"I'm glad they caught the guy," said John Hill, who now lives in Merlino's old apartment with his wife, Kathe, and young son.

Hill didn't know Merlino, but has heard the stories from neighbors.

"I guess our house is kind of famous," he said, showing a reporter a hacked up cutting board in the kitchen that slides into the countertop.

"They did ducks on this cutting board. That's blood and guts," he said. "They used to shoot holes in the ceiling."

Former neighbor Melissa Sarenana said she saw Merlino carve and clean a deer on his living room floor.

"He was like a big-time hunter person, a show-off kind of guy. He thought it was all funny," Sarenana said.

Merlino and his roommates "had a lot of fake targets. They had a big stuffed bear," she said.

"He thought it was fun to go out and shoot basically any sort of animal. He constantly bragged about that sort of stuff," she said. "He's just the type of person who would think it was funny to shoot a cat with a BB gun."

Local law enforcement teamed up with state livestock officials, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Naval Investigative Services and the U.S. Marine Corps to track the suspects in the three weeks between the shootings and arrests.

"They worked it just like a major homicide case," said Hammack.

Merlino's lawyer, Scott Freeman, said sheriff's deputies, the media and former neighbors are trying to convict Merlino without a trial.

"I'd appreciate it if you keep calling him a suspect as opposed to one doing the deed," he told reporters Friday.

Whitten said the suspects were identified through tips from citizens "as well as certain specific statements made by those believed to have been involved in the shootings."

Law officers have refused to offer any insight into the motive, other than to say they do not believe the shootings were related to ongoing differences with ranchers who don't want the horses competing for livestock forage.

Washoe County Sheriff Richard Kirkland said the arrests were a case of "very good detective work, painstaking, grinding work.

"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of leads and pieces of information had to be tracked down. Ninety nine out of a hundred ended up hitting a brick wall," he said.

In the first days, 30 to 40 tips were coming in daily, he said. The big break came when the granddaughter of sheriff's department employee overheard a conversation about the slaughter at a party.

"All the detectives took that and began to run that around, and it all started springing from that," Kirkland said.

Meanwhile, the telephone keeps ringing, Whitten said.

"We've had citizens across the country offer anything from psychic tips to offers to bury the horses."

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