“You see it on social media all the time, but I never thought it would happen to me. Someone shot and killed our horse last night in his pasture in Port Mansfield. If anyone has any leads please let us know. I am completely devastated R.I.P Seabiscuit.”
Those heartbreaking words showed up in my Facebook feed just a day after I started looking into mysterious horse killings in Texas, Florida and Louisiana.
I was able to interview the horse’s devastated owner Jessica Neu, who said the horse was shot in the chest, head on and no meat was taken.
“This was in a pasture right outside of Port Mansfield, TX. It’s the navigation district property where local kids can keep livestock and show animals..”
There is no known motive and as she noted in her post, these killings are showing up all over the place. If you have any information for Neu, contact her here.
We discussed a string of killings in the area around Pearland, TX that began in May and has continued into August. You can hear about those at our podcast here.
The podcast also addresses three similar killings in the Liberty County area from 2017-2018.
The Pearland killings involved the harvest of meat. Like the death of Neu’s horse, the ones in Liberty were shot and left to die with no meat harvest.
These are both bizarre situations and ones that I believe deserve attention here as horses are such an important part of the lifestyle of outdoors lovers.
There are two different situations happening regarding horse killings.
The Pearland killings along with a similar situation in central Florida most likely is tied to some sort of black market horse meat trade.
In order to butcher a horse and load it up it would be like skinning and packing out a large bull elk.
One hind quarter would possibly weigh over 100 pounds. There’s a good chance this would take more than one person and the risk level of taking the horse, killing and taking the meat is far higher than a drive by shooting of sorts.
The second situation is the killing of horses for seemingly no gain other than to kill the horse or perhaps terrorize the owners.
An Aug. 5 story at Spectrum News details a July killing of a little girls’ horse in Caldwell County, TX. where a horse was shot in the head and left to die. Caldwell County is a four hour drive straight up Highway 77 from Port Mansfield.
Another little girl’s horse was killed in February near Poteet according to the San Antonio-Express News. Interestingly, this is just an hour from the Caldwell County killing, one turn off of 77 from Port Mansfield (37 North) and all three of these involved kids pets, ag show horses or were on property where young people from these programs keep their horses.
Even the killings in Liberty involved a little girl’s horse. You can read more about it here.
Two of the killings were the same little girls’ horse-one two days before Christmas in 2017 and the other in February 2018 after someone gave her a new horse. Another child’s horse was killed in the same area Nov. 2017.
Is there a pattern here?
There are a few similar reports from other states.
On May 26, ABC Denver 7 reported “Horse Killed in Elbert County ‘Execution Style'”.
A horse was shot in the head as if someone walked up to the horse and did it at point blank range and was the second horse in the area killed by gunfire.
On Feb. 17 KNOE News 8 reported someone shot and killed a horse named “Big Mac” in Calhoun, La.
The horses owner in the story said she feels that she and her family are being targeted.
She said that her other horses have been mysteriously released from her barn by someone multiple times over the past year. She feels this is the same person who killed her horse.
A Nov. 2019 story reveals five horses in North and South Carolina stabbed or shot.
At least one of the Pearland horses was stabbed.
Is there a killer fixated on horses in Texas? What is driving the killing of horses for their meat? Why are horses the target of killings all around the nation?
There are many questions to ask and hopefully someone finds an answer soon.
Contact information on all of the above cases are in the linked stories if you have any pertinent information.
Chester Moore
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I think it might be possible that some of the animals are being “euthanized” by animal rights activists, probably after failed attempts of luring the animals away.