Last Wednesday morning, a horrified cat owner found the body of his beloved pet lying in a puddle outside their house. The cat had been decapitated and initially the cat's owner Tom Whitfield, and his family, believed she had been attacked by a fox.
But sickeningly, a vet revealed that Tabitha – who’d been the family pet for 14 years – was brutally murdered and confirmed her head had been cut off. The vile individual who attacked the cat used two knives.
Tom, who’s started a campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice, said: “In our eyes this is murder and we just cannot believe someone would do this to her. How does someone even fathom doing that and taking her head with them?
“There is no good way to lose a pet, but this is just terrible and someone seemed to know what they were doing. The way she was found makes you feel she was presented like a trophy. It is just unbearable.”
The family, from Bishopston, in Bristol, are also worried it could have been a personal attack.
RSPCA inspector Daniel Hatfield told the Mirror: “This is a tragic and horrific incident where it seems that somebody's beloved pet cat has been deliberately beheaded. We really feel for the owner who found their pet in this awful state and we are doing our very best to get to the bottom of exactly what happened here.
“The RSPCA would like to reassure pet owners that thankfully such deliberate attacks are rare and research shows that quite often such injuries are caused by wildlife after death which can also leave a clean wound. However, where a veterinary examination supports a deliberate cause, as in this case, we will do all we can to investigate.”