‘Absolutely reprehensible’: Winnipeg man lured, killed cats before their bodies were dumped under bridge, police say

By News Staff

A Winnipeg man is accused of luring cats or buying them on social media, inflicting fatal injuries on them before their bodies were dumped under a bridge.

“They were tortured and they were killed. It’s absolutely reprehensible,” Cst. Dani McKinnon told reporters.

The Winnipeg Police Service says three dead cats were found under the Summit Road Bridge by residents of the area last month. The animals were found in bags or lying on a path underneath the bridge.

Winnipeg police previously said there were approximately six cat bodies under the bridge, but corrected that number at a press conference Tuesday.

Major crimes unit investigators believe the suspect “either lured the cats or acquired them through a social media platform, ultimately inflicting injury which resulted in their deaths.”

Police arrested a 24-year-old suspect at his home Friday evening. He faces three charges of killing or injuring an animal and was released. The charges have not been formally laid in court.

McKinnon says investigators have not established a link between this individual and the dismembering of cats in Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighbourhood in September.

“We’ve reported on an awful lot of animal cruelty files, haven’t we,” McKinnon said. “I feel like this is disturbing. It’s odd for us to be reading them and releasing them, to write them. And I think for the investigators who deal with them — they are on the top of our minds.”

In what police are also describing as an unrelated case, two alleged Winnipeg animal abusers have been charged with the torture and murder of as many as 75 animals.

McKinnon did not want to say there is a growing trend of animal cruelty in the city.

“They’re different files though,” she said. “There was a host of investigations that were released that had to do with internet procurement and injury and killings to animals. Those are different than these ones.”

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