January 7, 2009

A North Carolina man was arrested this week for various accounts of animal abuse, after authorities uncovered both dismembered and live animals on his property. (Pet Pulse Illustration by Tim Mattson)

FREEMONT, N.C. -- A 28-year-old eastern North Carolina man was arrested yesterday on various animal cruelty charges in a gruesome case authorities uncovered on Dec. 3.

Lawton McKenzie turned himself in to authorities late Tuesday afternoon, and was later released on $3,000 bail.

[Eds note: This article contains graphic descriptions of animal abuse and butchery, which may be disturbing to some readers.]

An undetermined number of farm animals and dogs were found on McKenzie's Wayne County property, some so dismembered the remains were nearly unidentifiable.

Authorities also rescued 26 live animals, including dogs, goats, sheep and turkeys from the property.

"We located multiple dismembered animals, as well as decapitated ones. We couldn't tell how many were deceased" said Wayne County Animal Adoption and Education Center director Justin Scally.

Scally and his team had not anticipated the sickeningly gruesome nature of the scene.

"We've never seen anything like this before," he said. "It was very disturbing to the staff, and with something like that, we knew we had to take care of it, but it was still very distressing to us."

The rescued animals are not yet eligible for adoption, given the ongoing investigation surrounding the case, but have been placed in foster homes, Scally said. Some suffered from intestinal infections and were underweight, but the animals have now made a full recovery.

"A vet just looked at the puppies the other day and said they look like a million bucks," he said.

The raid didn't come soon enough for the many other animals on McKenzie's property, though.

Scally received a call from one of McKenzie's neighbors on Dec. 3, the same day authorities were dispatched to the accused's home.

It wasn't the first time McKenzie had been brought to their attention -- neighbors have repeatedly reported him throughout the past year, citing dogs without shelter and animals running loose.

Scally said he has met with McKenzie on previous occasions, and while he was "certainly a person on our radar," he never expected to uncover a mass graveyard on his land.

Prior visits to McKenzie's home didn't reveal "any of that [injured and dead animals]," Scally said.

This time, burned snakes and turtles were clearly visible beneath a concocted fire pit, which bore the remains of a goat's head. Bowls of blood rested in the backyard, where the living animals roamed free. Remains of predatory birds, including owls, as well as a dead cat were also located.

The case was only made public on Monday, due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, Scally said. McKenzie, who was arrested yesterday, told authorities that he found the animals on the road and did not kill them.

McKenzie says he used the animals' bones to make necklaces and that he practices taxidermy -- the stuffing, reproduction and mounting of dead animals -- according to Scally.

The charges could be treated as either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on if the courts rule that McKenzie acted with "malice."

It is believed that McKenzie had been consuming goats, Scally says, but there is no evidence that he ate any of the other animals.

Scally declined to address if McKenzie could have been using the animals for ritualistic sacrifices, saying "it is unclear, at this point, what he was using the animals for."

But Don Rimer, a Virginia Beach, Va.- based private investigator who focuses on cult activity, took a more definitive stance.

Rimer says Scally has sought his consultation several times over the course of December.

When asked if McKenzie may have performed animal sacrifices, Rimer said, "without a doubt. That is what he is doing."

An Afro-Caribbean religion, Palo, may be at the root of the crime, Rimer said, given the use of the bones as necklaces, which are thought to protect followers of the religion.

He said the bowls of blood were likely to be used for an animal stew, which followers of Palo believe can transmit the dead animals' spirits and strength into the consumers' bodies.

Prosecutors are not likely to harp on the potential ritualistic element to the case, however; animal sacrifices are federally protected by freedom of speech and religion.

The focus should shift to the crime itself, not the reasoning behind it, the Humane Society of the United States says.

"The reasons behind that kind of treatment of animals are less important than the fact that the acts were committed," said Dale Bartlett, deputy manager of animal cruelty at the Humane Society of the United Stated.

"If what he did was illegal, it was illegal, not just because of a religious practice."

Authorities will continue to investigate the case, for which no court date has been set. A focus will be placed on examining the animals' corpses, which could lead to evidence of how they were killed.

The poor state of the remains might make it "difficult to decipher if the animal suffered blunt force trauma from a person," Scally said.

Still, Rachel Lee, the Pennsylvania SPCA's chief investigative veterinarian, said even if the remains are decomposed, there is still "tons of information to be gathered from anybody."

"You do start to lose information as the body decomposes, but there is always value in evaluating it nonetheless," she said.

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