Latest Case of Cattle Mutilation in Oregon Confounds Investigators

A mutilated range cow found dead late last summer has left authorities perplexed as to how it may have died, according to the Blue Mountain Eagle.

The cow, a breeding animal worth around $850, was found dead with her genitals, udder, tongue and heart removed at Bar DR Land and Cattle—a ranch near Hampton, Oregon, owned by Clancy and Stephen Roth.

Kenyon Morehouse, the Roth’s ranch hand, reportedly found the cow dead when he visited the pasture to fill the water tanks, something he did each morning.

Bar DR Land and Cattle is approximately 100 miles southwest of Silvies Valley Ranch, where last summer five young purebred bulls were found dead.

The bulls were found drained of blood, with certain body parts “precisely removed.” The missing body parts, which included the anus, scrotum, testicles, and tongues, are often the first to be taken by scavengers, but the wounds, when examined by the authorities, were said to be cleanly cut.

Lake County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Tom Roark, who launched an investigation into this latest cattle mutilation on September 18th, 2019, described the animal’s injuries as being similarly clean—meaning they likely didn’t come as a result of scavengers.

“When a pack of coyotes or birds gets to a carcass, not much is left—just bones and hide, unevenly chewed,” said Roark. “This was clean-cut, like it was done with a blade. If somebody was hungry, they would’ve whittled up a chunk of back meat and taken it home. This wasn’t done for food. It was something sinister.”

The cow had also been exsanguinated, just like the bulls a few weeks before.

“The blood was gone,” Clancy Roth said. “It looked like someone snipped her artery and drained her.”

So far, the cause of death is unknown, due at least in part to the fact that the 24-hour window in which to perform a necropsy had elapsed prior to Deputy Roark's arrival the morning after the cow was found.

There was no apparent cause of death, such as bullet wounds or strangulation marks, nor were there any clues like rope burns on nearby trees, tire tracks, or shoe prints—and, despite having been seemingly drained of its blood, none was found spilled around the corpse.

One clue that was found at the crime scene: agitated hoof marks beside the cow's foot indicate that she may have struggled in her last moments.

The crime scene is remote, about a 45-minute drive to the nearest paved road and approximately 100 feet off the dirt road, which means that any person committing the crime must have planned it.

But who would do such a thing, and to what end?

Deputy Roark suspects that a cult is using the animal parts for “bizarre medicinal practices,” and the Roths have similar concerns.

“We think it’s a satanic thing,” Clancy Roth said. “They’re probably taking the reproductive organs and using or selling them for satanic rituals.”

She added that perhaps the act was tied to certain times or numbers, noting that the number on the cow's ear tag, 1313, was doubly unlucky.

Roth thinks it's possible that the killers may have poisoned her cow. After the killing, she said that her husband and his friend found a tiny scrap of fiber resembling a feather tip caught in nearby sagebrush. She believes the fiber could have been from the fletch of a poisonous dart.

Unfortunately, analysis of the crime scene did not yield any suspects, and now, four months later, there are still no leads.

“I’ve seen too many crime scenes,” Roark said. “But this one’s got no evidence. Nothing. It’s really bizarre.”

The Bureau of Land Management is also reportedly investigating the incident.

This cow’s death, and the deaths of the bulls before it, are part of a much larger phenomenon involving thousands of livestock deaths and mutilations that have been reported since the 1970s. The mysterious deaths and mutilations were so prolific, they even drew the attention of the FBI. The reports are eerily similar, sharing the grotesque details of missing body parts and a conspicuous lack of blood. Explanations for the phenomenon range from mundane illnesses to satanic cults to extraterrestrials, but so far they remain a mystery.

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