Each time, it happened overnight, in the same pasture of Berny-en-Santerre, a small Picardy village of 150 inhabitants. First on May 14, a white and brown horse was found dead in the early morning. Then a little pony, discovered barely three days later. On the corpses, no traces of blows, but a shocking detail: the two horses miss the right ear. Not torn off, but cut out, in one case with surgical care, " like a scalpel ", says Mayor Francis Leroy: " It took place in full confinement. It's a crazy thing. "
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The reason ? A mystery. But in the mutilation, a striking resemblance to a series of killing of equines which has terrorized the breeders for several months. On February 12, a horse was found dead in its enclosure at the agricultural college of Château-Salins, in Moselle. A month later, a racehorse was discovered lifeless in Vendée, near Sables-d'Olonne. On April 22, a filly was found slaughtered in Quierzy-sur-Oise, in Aisne. In May, the two horses from Berny-en-Santerre are added to the list. On June 6, a mare was found dying near Dieppe, in Seine-Maritime. Two weeks later, a 14-year-old donkey is found dead, one eye torn off, in a pasture in Grumesnil, in Seine-Maritime. All had a cut ear.
The accumulation ended up attracting the attention of investigators from the Central Territorial Intelligence Service (SCRT), who devoted a note to this subject on June 30, reports Le Parisien on Monday . " Questions arise about their perpetrators and their real intentions, " note the police. " Superstition, fetishism, satanic ritual, sectarian or other ", in any case " a real desire to harm equines in general while keeping an ear as a trophy, " reports the SCRT.
For the time being, the investigators do not know with certainty if these abuses were committed by the same group of individuals, or if each killing involved several individuals. The methods of execution differ, as does their location. " I can't see someone making 550 lines to shoot a donkey, but there are so many incomprehensible things these days ," sighs Loïck Crampon, owner of the donkey who was killed on June 19. We do not know what he died of, and there were no witnesses, the pasture is in the middle of nowhere. "
"I don't dare go out of my house anymore"
In charge of the investigation at the local level, the gendarmerie of Gournay-en-Bray has little information. At the gendarmerie of Sarrebourg, which follows the case of the agricultural college of Château-Salins, we also note the difficulty of gathering elements in such isolated places. " We found no trace on the spot, and the neighborhood investigation did not give anything ," deplores Captain Jean-Christophe Eberlé. It is unfortunate to say, but it is an investigation which risks giving nothing. Furthermore, the causes of the animals' deaths have often not been identified due to the lack of conclusive scientific analyzes.
According to a source close to the file joined by Le Figaro , the investigators were however able to attest, on at least one occasion, the involvement of several people during the same exaction. An observation that would characterize the action of at least one organized gang, confirming the intuition of Philippe Boutin, trainer of the trotter killed in Vendée. " We see that he tried not to get caught ," he told France 3 Pays de la Loire. There are traces of slipping in the field. One person cannot do this. "The authors of the SCRT note also note that" the traces found on the nostrils suggest the use of a twister, accessory requiring its user knowledge and skills in the equestrian world to handle it effectively . "
Three preliminary investigations were opened and " grouped under the authority of a single investigator to be able to study all possible reconciliations ," the AFP prosecutor, Alexandre de Bosschère, told AFP. Entrusted to the gendarmes of the Péronne research brigade, they target the crime of “ acts of cruelty to an animal ”. In Puy-de-Dôme, a preliminary investigation was also opened in the spring and entrusted to the gendarmes of Ancizes for two similar facts which took place six months apart between the end of 2018 and June 2019 in the same village.
" We are in contact with the other public prosecutor's offices to try to establish reconciliations and possibly regroup the investigations but for the moment this is not the case ", declared the prosecutor of the Republic of Clermont-Ferrand, Eric Maillaud. The central office for combating damage to the environment and public health (OCLAESP), the judicial police service of the national gendarmerie, is also seized of the case.
For their part, the victim owners try as best they can to unravel the sons of this sordid series, the first cases of which date back to January 2014, when a horse was found horribly mutilated in Usson-en-Forez, in the Loire. Pauline Sarrazin, whose mare Lady was mutilated on June 6, founded a Facebook group, "Justice for our horses", aimed at gathering other owners and drawing attention to these attacks. " I don't sleep at night anymore, I don't dare go out of my house anymore ," she confides on the phone. About sixty kilometers away, Loïck Crampon, his brother and his father take turns every day to stand guard with their animals.
