{"id":9193,"date":"2012-02-22T11:29:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T19:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/?p=9193"},"modified":"2012-02-22T13:44:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T21:44:55","slug":"suspicious-activity-animal-skulls-and-the-perils-of-sensationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/2012\/02\/suspicious-activity-animal-skulls-and-the-perils-of-sensationalism.html","title":{"rendered":"“Suspicious Activity,” Animal Skulls, and the Perils of Sensationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday, local news reporters in Chester County,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0covered<\/a> what law enforcement and animal control officials called a \u201cdark and disturbing\u201d<\/em> scene. The alleged slaughtered corpses of half-a-dozen dogs, surrounded by occult books and\u00a0paraphernalia.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTwo people are in custody after police found more than a half dozen dismembered dogs inside a Chester County house Monday night. SPCA officers carried out bags and boxes of evidence from a home in the 2400 block of Wayne Avenue in the city of Coatesville. Officials say the scene inside was dark and disturbing with elements of witchcraft and the occult on vivid display.<\/strong> In the living room, investigators say they found two dog skulls and a dog skeleton that had been gold-leafed. They then walked into the kitchen and found two dog skeletons on the counter and a dog\u2019s head in the freezer.<\/strong>\u201c<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This seems pretty bad. It\u2019s one thing to tolerate the sacrifice of a livestock animal like a chicken or goat, but dogs? People love dogs, and those who harm and abuse them are usually treated as no better than if they murdered a human being. Plus, \u201cwitchcraft and the occult\u201d<\/em>? You know that local Pagans, not to mention adherents of Santeria or Vodou, will have to do damage control for years because of this. But what if, just what if, those weren\u2019t dog skulls. What if they were something else<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the remains found in Caln Township haven\u2019t been confirmed as canine<\/strong>, [George Bengal, the director of law enforcement for the state\u2019s SPCA]\u00a0said there may not be cause for alarm. In his experience, goat and dog skulls can be easily confused.<\/strong>\u201c<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s true! If you aren\u2019t an expert in such matters, and if you are full of\u00a0adrenaline\u00a0responding\u00a0to a \u201csuspicious activity\u201d call, it can be quite easy to confuse a goat skull with a dog skull. Here\u2019s a side-by-side comparison with a domestic dog skull and a domestic goat skull.<\/p>\n

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For the sake of argument, if these were goat skulls, wouldn\u2019t that explain why they were keeping some in a freezer? Why there were charred bone remains in a fire pit? That they were, you know, eating<\/em> the goats? Now, I don\u2019t eat meat, so goats aren\u2019t on my menu, but I hear that goat is the most-consumed type of meat in the world, and is increasingly trendy here in the United States<\/a>. So wouldn\u2019t having a decorated goat skull in your house be no more different than the many, many, folks I\u2019ve met who display decorated cow skulls in their homes (particularly in the Southwest)<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Regardless of veracity, because of the \u201csacrificed dog\u201d angle that all the initial reports have put out, the local occult\/metaphysical community is now on the defensive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my 41 years of practicing the occult, I\u2019ve never come across any ritual or activity that involves killing dogs or cats,\u201d [Eric Lee, co-owner of Mystickal Tymes<\/a>] said. \u201cThis person sounds more like a sadistic individual that should be heavily sedated than an occult practitioner.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now think of the owners of that house. Even if the remains were goats that they ate, will they ever have peace again? Or will they be forever branded as the \u201cdog\u00a0sacrifice\u201d family, and be slowly ostracized and exiled from the community? Will the local media do big flashy \u201cexonerated\u201d stories, or will we just get a quiet addendum that nobody pays attention to?<\/p>\n

A final question. Why did the local SPCA officials on-scene instantly jump to the conclusion that these were dog remains, comments that were soon walked back after the fact<\/a>? Could it be that many SPCA officials received training in \u201coccult\u201d matters from biased sources? In fact, state SPCA official George Bengal, who is quoted above, has made odd remarks about animal sacrifice in the past<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn animal welfare official says a beheaded dog and cat found in Philadelphia appear to be the result of a ritual sacrifice.\u00a0George Bengal, Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals director of investigations<\/strong>, said the dog and cat were found \u2026 near a bike path in Philadelphia\u2019s Olney neighborhood along with three beheaded chickens. He said he believes the animals were killed elsewhere and the remains dumped where a passer-by found them. Mr. Bengal\u00a0said there is usually an increase in ritual animal sacrifices at this time of year because of \u201ca lot of high holidays that different groups celebrate.\u201d<\/strong> But he said most of those sacrifices involve goats and chickens.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A different\u00a0Pennsylvania-based SPCA official in 2009 harassed a Satanist, accusing him of abusing his pets<\/a>, despite no evidence that this was\u00a0occurring. He too was the victim of a \u201csuspicious activity\u201d<\/em> call. Which makes one wonder, why does the\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0SPCA think occult practitioners are routinely harming dogs and cats? What data or evidence are they basing this on, and why were officials so quick to exclaim \u201cdog\u201d in\u00a0Chester County, Pennsylvania when it might have been \u201cgoat\u201d instead?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, local news reporters in Chester County,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0covered what law enforcement and animal control officials called a \u201cdark and disturbing\u201d scene. The alleged slaughtered corpses of half-a-dozen dogs, surrounded by occult books and\u00a0paraphernalia. \u201cTwo people are in custody after police found more than a half dozen dismembered dogs inside a Chester County house Monday night. SPCA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[122,124,404,1670,1795,1902,2085,2195,2662],"class_list":["post-9193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paganism","category-religion","tag-animal-cruelty","tag-animal-sacrifice","tag-chester-county","tag-occult","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pspca","tag-santeria","tag-spca","tag-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"\n"Suspicious Activity," Animal Skulls, and the Perils of Sensationalism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday, local news reporters in Chester County,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0covered what law enforcement and animal control officials called a "dark and disturbing"\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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