Cat Torture in GA - Justice for Baby Angel

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Justice for Baby Angel

Jurisdictional dispute?

More of this Feature

• Part 1: Conjecture, Rumor, and Truth

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• Original Call for Action

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MTV Behind Dead Cat Incident?

Dateline: February 26, 2001
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Strong content

I must admit that my previous career within the criminal justice system somewhat colored my judgment in making that original statement. However, in talking at length with D.A. Head (who, by the way, was forthcoming and candid), I learned a lot about the way the criminal justice system works in Georgia.

D.A. Head did not even see the report until after the Cobb County Police and the Cherokee County officials had completed their investigation, which satisfied both agencies that the facts were essentially consistent with the youths' story and video tape. At that point, the only offense that could be proven to have happened within the Cobb County jurisdiction was the parading of the dead cat around in the K-Mart and PetSmart stores. Sadly, the only current GA law which covers this kind of action is the one the young men were cited with: improperly disposing of a dead animal. In any case, there was no jurisdictional dispute, but in fact, both agencies cooperated fully in the investigation.

Timeline of Events

The following timeline of events was given to me by Pat Head and I tend to accept them as realistic and accurate:

On February 1, 2001, two witnesses (a husband and wife) in Cherokee County saw the black cat sitting on the side of the road as though it were attempting to cross. The husband was walking to the back of the business when he heard his wife scream. He ran back to the front of the business and she told him the cat had been hit while attempting to cross the road. Also on that day, an investigator with the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department recalled seeing the cat in the middle of the roadway and people swerving in order to avoid hitting the dead cat.

The next day, an employee of the business where the two previous witnesses discussed above had seen the cat, took the body of the cat and put it into a grassy area in the ditch on the side of the roadway.

Later that evening, the people where were later observed with the cat at Petsmart arrived and VIDEO TAPED the retrieval of the cat from the ditch, the placing of the cat into the back of the pickup truck; taking the cat out of the pickup truck and placing it into the shopping card; and their actions of pushing the cart around the Petsmart store.

The investigator who looked at the videotape also looked at the location where the witnesses and Sheriff's investigator had seen the cat and determined the location shown on the videotape was in fact the same location in Cherokee County

Because there were witnesses who saw the cat being killed when it was struck by the car; because there were witnesses who saw the body of the cat being placed in the ditch; because there is a video tape of the removal of the cat from the ditch, the decision was made by the police agencies involved that no torture had been performed on the cat by the individuals seen at the Petsmart Store."
Pat Head, District Attorney for Cobb County, GA

The question has been raised, that if this scenario is true, how did the youths just happen to see a black cat lying dead in a ditch as darkness approached, and furthermore, how did they just happen to have their video equipment handy at the time?

I can answer this with some conjecture of my own: The kids saw the cat in the ditch earlier in the day. They had been thinking about making a video to enter into an MTV contest, called "Jackass". Upon discovering the cat, they said, "Cool. Here's the perfect subject for our video." They went home and got the video camera and came back to pick up the cat.

Believable? I think so. Stupid? No doubt, in that MTV does not accept "home videos" for their "Jackass" series.

It has also been theorized that perhaps the youths had indeed skewered the already dead cat, but after observing the uproar, cut that part out of the video (since the video was not surrendered to authorities until a couple of days after the PetSmart incident). When I mentioned that possibility to D.A. Cobb, he admitted that he had not personally seen the video, but that if he found evidence of a manipulation of the video, he would let me know. He added however, that under current GA law there is no statute covering the mutilation of an animal's body after its death. There is one addressing mutilation of human bodies, but in his words, "You can do anything with a dead animal short of having sex with it."

A third theory is that somehow there were two cats involved: the already dead cat which the youths filmed themselves picking up, and a look-alike live black cat, which they tortured and killed. My response is: What would be the point of that? Why would they go to such convoluted lengths to film a video? There comes a point where we must work within the known facts, instead of theorizing other scenarios in an attempt to prove what we choose to believe.

Mr. Head did want my readers to know that the Cobb County officials took this matter extremely seriously and the police emphasized the seriousness of the matter to the young men. They were told that "what you did was WRONG. It was not just foolish or stupid; it was WRONG." A police officer spent the better part of a day imparting this message, and required the youths to personally write letters of apology to both the PetSmart store and the community as a whole.

This is not necessarily the sum of their punishment. The hearing is now set for March 22, 2001, 9:00 AM, Courtroom H, Magistrate Court, 30 Waddell Street, Marietta, GA, and Soliciter General Barry Morgan will be prosecuting the case. These were his comments to me:

"I believe these men will enter a plea of guilty and my recommendation to the judge will be 12 months probation, a fine, 3 CSAI weekends in the custody of Animal control (normally we would not assign folks to animal control for community weekends, however, this was at the suggestion of animal control) and a psychological evaluation and any counseling required by the evaluation."
Barry Morgan, Solicitor General, Cobb County GA

It is well known that serial killers get their start in life by torturing and killing small creatures. Although these young men may not have commited those serious acts, what they did do was WRONG, and is a serious red flag to the state of their emotional health.

These young men thought it would be cool to "gross people out," but in doing so, they got more than they had bargained for, and it is hoped this will be a lifetime lesson for them and for other kids who might be tempted to imitate them.

Their actions demonstrated a total lack of respect for the value of life. A dead animal should be an object of pity, not an instrument to scorn and ridicule. Baby Angel was a living, sentient being, and for that reason alone, deserved to be treated with respect both in life and after death.

I sincerely hope that the Magistrate hearing the case will invoke psychological evaluation and counselling as a condition of their sentence. A sentence which would turn them toward a new appreciation of animals would be fitting justice for Baby Angel, who deserved so much more than she received at the hands of these three young men.