Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999 | 5:20 a.m.
VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. - A Storey County judge has decided there's enough evidence to try three men accused of slaughtering wild horses.
Storey County Justice of the Peace Annette Daniels ruled Thursday that two ex-Marines and a former high school buddy can be tried in district court on charges of killing another person's animal. She dismissed four other charges including theft and grand larceny against the defendants.
The three are accused of shooting more than two dozen mustangs with high-powered rifles last December in the hills just east of Reno south of Interstate 80.
Former Lance Cpls. Scott Brendle, 22, and Darien Brock, 21, and Anthony Merlino, 20, a Reno construction worker, have admitted to shooting one horse but deny any involvement with a mass killing.
Earlier Thursday, an expert witness called by the prosecution said the horses were shot within a three-day period starting on Christmas Day.
Nevada State Veterinarian David Thain testified the animals died sometime between the afternoon of Dec. 25 and the night of Dec. 27.
When the horses died has been a key point during the preliminary hearing.
The defendants have said they found two dead horses on the afternoon of Dec. 27 and shot one that night, but denied killing any others.
Their lawyers have maintained the horses could have been dead a long time before authorities discovered them Dec. 27.
Thain, however, said the window of death stretched back only as far as Dec. 25.
Much of the testimony over the past five days has focused on statements from investigators, with no physical evidence to link any of the three to the dead horses.
Defense lawyers have highlighted the absence of fingerprints or any ballistic tests that tie the bullets to the defendants' guns and maintain the real killers are still out there.
On Wednesday, they also maintained that the horses may actually have wandered onto state land from nearby federal property managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
In that case, the horses would be under the jurisdiction of the federal government and the defendants would have no business being prosecuted in county court, they argued.
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