Man Arrested for Mass Animal cruelty

A 28-year-old eastern North Carolina man was arrested yesterday on various
animal cruelty charges in a hideous box powers that be uncovered on Dec. 3.



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



his item contains graphic descriptions of animal abuse and butchery, which may
be disturbing to some readers.



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



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



"We located multiple dismembered animals in North
Carolina, as on form as
decapitated ones. We couldn't tell how many were deceased" said Wayne County
Animal Adoption and Education Center principal Justin Scally.



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



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



The rescued nature 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 previous day and said they come across
like a million bucks," he said.



The raid didn't move towards before long enough for the many other animals on
McKenzie's North Carolina
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 North Carolina home.



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



Scally said he has met with McKenzie on previous occasions, and at the same time
as he was "certainly a being on our radar," he never expected to discover a mass
graveyard on his land.



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



This time, burned snakes and turtles were clearly visible beneath a concocted
fire pit, which bore to tears the remains of a goat's head. Bowls of blood
rested in the backyard, where the living nature 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
incomplete investigation, Scally said. McKenzie, who was arrested yesterday,
told authorities that he found the animals on the boulevard and did not slay
them.



McKenzie says he second-hand the animals' bones to make necklaces and that he
practices taxidermy -- the stuffing, replica 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 natural world for."



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



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



At What Time 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 old for an animal stew, which
followers of Palo believe can transmit the dead animals' mental state and
strength into the consumers' bodies.



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



The spotlight should shift to the crime itself, not the reasoning following it,
the Kind Society of the United States says.



"The reasons behind that kind of handling of animals are fewer significant than
the fact with the intention of the acts were committed," said Dale Bartlett,
deputy manager of animal cruelty at the North Carolina Humane Society of the
Amalgamated Fixed.



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



North Carolina authorities will continue to investigate the case, for which no
court time has been set. A focus will be positioned on examining the animals'
corpses, which could head to evidence of how they were killed.



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



Still, Rachel Lee, the Pennsylvania SPCA's chief exploratory veterinarian, said
even if the remains are decomposed, there is motionless "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 nevertheless," she said.