11 Proud Youngsters Torture, Kill Horse : Texas: Children’s ages range from 8 to 14. The quarterhorse was found dead in a tangle of barbed wire, with a broken leg and a stick shoved up its nostril.

The children later told police they had started chasing Mr. Wilson Boy around the sunny pasture. They did not know why. But when it was all over, the gentle quarterhorse lay dead in a tangle of barbed wire, its leg broken, a sharp stick rammed up its nostril as a final bit of torture. The animal had been clubbed to death with branches the size of baseball bats.

That brutal after-school act on Sept. 14 in itself was enough to stun the 6,300 residents of this otherwise pleasant town, deep in the pine forests of east Texas. No one, however, was prepared for the utter remorselessness of the 11 young suspects, ages 8 to 14. Returning to their junior high and elementary school classes the next day, the 10 boys and one girl bragged openly about what they had done, and when authorities came to question them, they laughed and boasted that they thought it was “cool” to be arrested at school.

“They still think it was funny. They thought it made them big guys on campus,” said Hardin County Sheriff H.R. (Mike) Holzapfel. “When the deputies brought them into the jail’s sally port, I couldn’t believe my ears, they were snickering and talking about how cool it had been to be arrested in front of their classmates.

“I said, ‘We’ll see how funny ya’ll think this is in the morning when you’re eating a jailhouse breakfast.’ And that’s when they looked at the deputies and said, ‘Are you really going to lock us up?’ That sobered them up. It was sickening.”

In a town where the most common offense normally is a traffic violation, the cruel slaughter of a beautiful horse and the inexplicable motives of its young tormentors have produced the most disturbing questions. Grown-ups here shake their heads in sorrow and dismay, and repeat the belief that this terrible thing is not representative of their small, friendly town, that such horrid acts can, and do, occur anywhere nowadays. But then they pull up short and wonder, how much comfort is that?

“What were those kids thinking? I keep trying to figure out, what was in their heads?” asked Robert Simmons, an unemployed man who has spent his entire 40 years in Silsbee, lives in the neighborhood where the horse was killed and knows most of the youngsters allegedly involved. “And I hate to say it, but it makes you wonder, if they have no conscience about torturing and killing a horse, what might they do to a human if the mood hit them? It makes a lot of bad stuff go through your head.”

There are no good answers. Since the incident came to light last month, supermarket tabloids are calling daily to collect the ugly details, and inquiries are rolling in from television stations as far-flung as England and Japan. To residents of Silsbee, where the city limits are festooned with warm greetings from the Church of Christ and a dozen other places of worship, the unwanted attention is yet another bitter assault.

In the past, the town has coped privately and bravely with its problems. In 1986, the loss of 800 jobs in the dominating timber industry threatened its very survival. But lately the outlook had been much cheerier. At city council meetings these days, the talk has been of beautification projects and building city parks.

“I don’t need to defend my town. It doesn’t need defending. It’s a fine place,” said Mayor Helen P. Larsh, 53, who teaches mathematics at the local high school and knew none of the children. “I keep repeating, this is a random act of violence perpetrated by some young people who, for some reason, lost control.”

What happened in the grassy pasture on the outskirts of town is a chilling series of images. Mr. Wilson Boy, 10 years old, belonged to Charles Woodard--Coach Woodard, as he is known throughout the town--the coach of the high-school football team and, at 53, a lifelong resident of Silsbee. Police do not think, however, that the youths knew who owned the horse or had any grudge against him. Mr. Wilson Boy was just a horse who lived a half-mile from most of the children, just outside the town limits in a modest section of widely spaced, houses and mobile homes.

It was not the first excursion onto Woodard’s land. On the afternoon before the killing, they had rambled through the same pasture, chasing and scaring the cattle. The next day, before they turned their attentions to the horse, the youths allegedly had burglarized Woodard’s barn, taking a Weed Eater, some tools and spray paint. Holzapfel hinted that the return trip and the assault on Mr. Wilson Boy had been planned; the horse was first hobbled when someone aimed and threw a solid chunk of wood at its leg. Woodard discovered the animal’s body that evening.

Police have not charged the 8- and 9-year-olds, declaring them too young, but the others have been charged with criminal mischief, which could mean probation or as much as a two-year sentence. Two of them have been released from the county detention center, but seven are still being held. Holzapfel said that three of the youths have juvenile records, and a purported ringleader of the group had just been given a year’s probation on the day of the horse’s slaying for breaking into and defacing a Silsbee school.

In the midst of the furor, Coach Woodard has struggled to keep a low profile. A popular fixture of the town, known for his kindly manner, he is at a loss, he said, to explain why the children did what they did and, by association, the sorrow that has come to his beloved home town.

“It is, without a doubt,” he said, “the kind of story that saddens your heart.”