Covina Cat Mutilations Not Satanic Ritual : 2 Youths Arrested; ‘Just Got Carried Away,’ Police Say

Cat mutilations that police thought may have been linked to satanic rituals have turned out to be the work of two teen-agers who “just got carried away,” police said.

The youths, aged 16 and 17, were arrested Tuesday after police confronted them with information they had received from anonymous sources.

Not Identified

The teen-agers, who later admitted their involvement in the killings, were not identified because they are juveniles.

“These kids aren’t devil worshipers or into satanism,” said Covina Police Sgt. Kim Raney. “They really had no rationale or message. It’s just one of those thing that pops into a kid’s head.”

The teen-agers told police that they killed about 14 cats and dumped their carcasses in five locations around Covina.

Raney said the bodies of two cats were cut open and their blood used to scrawl satanic symbols on a wall. They cut off the tails of 11 cats and saved them in a box as “souvenirs,” he said.

The teen-agers were released to their parents. Their cases have been refered to the district attorneys office, which will decide whether they will be tried for cruelty to animals.

The killings were made public last week when police disclosed that they were investigating the mutilation of several cats whose carcasses were found at the closed Cienega Elementary School next to a wall that had “666” and a pentagram scrawled on it.

Reports of the killings shocked some residents and left some worrying about the safety of their children.

“It’s real scary,” said Sylvia Magallanes, who lives across the street from the school. “Even if it is a bunch of teen-agers, if they’re sick enough to cut up an animal, I’m terrified.”

Detective Frank Schmid said the teen-agers began killing cats in early March, when they ran over a cat in the street for fun.

They had no specific reason but began looking for more cats to kill, Schmid said.

For the next month and half, the teen-agers trapped stray cats and killed them by smashing them against a wall or kicking them to death, he said.

Schmid said the two argued with other members of a church youth group during a discussion on satanism. That led them to cut open the bodies of two cats and use the blood to scrawl satanic symbols at Cienega Elementary School, he said.

Left Box of Tails

“It was an attempt to emulate Satanists,” Schmid said. “They only did it once.”

After news reports began appearing about the killings, the two teen-agers took the box of cat tails and left it at the Covina Post Office, Schmid said. The tails were discovered Saturday.

“These kids were squared-away students. They dressed neatly, played sports and did well in school,” Schmid said. “They just got caught up in things.”