Pets Better Off Indoors at Halloween, Group Warns

A Tustin group is warning pet owners to keep their animals inside around Halloween, and is offering a $3,000 reward to stop what it suspects are ritual animal killings.

Tustin Residents Against Animal Killers was formed several years ago by North Tustin resident Janet Hampson, who claims she has catalogued the death of more than 200 cats.

Members are distributing more than 7,000 flyers alerting pet owners to be cautious and keep their pets inside as Halloween approaches. Some members might patrol neighborhoods where pets have been found dead, Hampson said.

“These nights prior to Halloween are actually more dangerous,” she said. “I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of serious cult killers traipsing around on Halloween night when there are a lot of people around.”

Hampson said occult specialists have told her the animals may be held alive for several days before being killed, or they may be killed and then have their body parts and blood stored in the refrigerator.

She said she has had four calls about suspicious cat killings in the last week, three from Tustin and one from Laguna Beach. Every year, the numbers increase around Halloween, she said.

But Mark McDorman, chief of field services for the county animal control department, disagreed.

Although the county does take the precaution of not allowing black cats to be adopted in the weeks before Halloween, McDorman said there is no evidence that animal killings rise around the holiday.

He said that county officials have found no evidence of human involvement in the more than 400 animal deaths they have investigated since 1989, he said.

County officials called for a federal investigation into the controversy in 1989 and the USDA Animal Damage Control Department concluded then that coyotes were responsible for the suspicious deaths.

Since then, county officials have continued to examine dead animals and have tried to make people more aware that they should keep pets inside, cover trash and not leave pet food outside to discourage coyotes from coming in contact with pets.

“Usually there’s lots of evidence surrounding animals killed for occult purposes that would suggest that, and we have not found evidence to suggest human involvement in any of the cases we have looked at,” McDorman said.

McDorman said the only case of occult involvement in animal deaths he can recall was last spring in Buena Park, when blood was found smeared in the shape of a star on the wall of a flood control channel near dead goats, chickens and geese.

Anyone with information on cat killings is asked to call We Tip Inc. at (800) 78-CRIME.