Toll of suspicious cat deaths reaches 6 in La Quinta

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Riverside County sheriff’s officials are investigating the suspicious deaths of three cats recently reported in the La Quinta area, bringing the total to six felines found gutted, mutilated or shot in recent weeks.

Lt. Raymond Gregory, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said investigators believe the first three cat slayings, which took place within a one-mile radius in the northern part of La Quinta, are linked. He said in those cases the cats had not been attacked by an animal.

Gregory said it was less clear whether animals could have killed the cats found more recently.

The first cat’s carcass was found with gunshot wounds on May 29 in the gated community of Starlight Dunes. The next day, a second cat was found gutted on Desert Stream Drive near La Quinta Park. The third incident occurred June 18, when a resident told police his cat was found with its stomach slit open in front of his home in the 44000 block of Foxtail Circle.

Gregory said the owners discarded the animals before the Sheriff’s Department could examine the carcasses.

‘We didn’t have any physical evidence on the cats,’ Gregory said. ‘And a few weeks went by, and it looked like isolated incidents until the third killing.’

Gregory said the initial news reports about the killings generated more calls from cat owners about additional incidents, raising concerns by law enforcement officials that a cat killer -- whether human or not -- is on the loose.

The fourth suspicious cat death was reported Saturday, he said. The cat’s body was found torn apart in Bermuda Dunes, an unincorporated area north of La Quinta.

‘Animals may have had access to the body in that case,’ Gregory said.

A fifth cat’s carcass was found Sunday at the Renaissance Housing Development, at Avenue 50 and Jefferson Street in La Quinta. Its location, in the heart of the small town, and the way the carcass was placed suggest that a human may have caused the death, Gregory said.

The sixth cat death was reported Monday when a mutilated cat was found near a housing development in La Quinta at Washington Street and Miles Avenue.

‘That one is the most suspicious,’ Gregory said. ‘There were numerous cuts to the body and the skin was partially removed. And its location is more urban.’

Unlike the first three cat deaths, in which the animals’ carcasses were discarded by the owners, authorities have the bodies of the three most recently killed. As in human homicide investigations, officials photographed the scene of each death.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta