A dead cat dumped in the street has led to felony charges against a Missouri man accused of killing and dismembering cats he allegedly rounded up on Craigslist.
Police in St. Charles County, in suburban St. Louis, report that multiple dead cats and kittens had been found since the start of the year, littering the road on or near Wild Deer Lane, according to a probable cause statement in the case obtained by PEOPLE.
On May 6, a witness saw a male in a white, four-door Toyota Camry dump a dead cat from a bag of water along that same road, say police.
An investigation located a deceased cat and three mutilated kittens. When police started asking questions, they contacted 20-year-old Kaine Louzader, who drove a car matching the description and lived on Wild Deer Lane in St. Peters.
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After being read his rights, police say Louzader laid out a horrific series of alleged animal abuses.
Louzader “admitted to killing multiple cats” between January and May 9, the probable cause affidavit states.
He claimed he located his alleged animal victims by answering Craigslist ads posted by people who were selling or giving them away. Then, after buying or picking up the free animals, he said he took them home, “where he would strangle or stomp on the heads of the cats in the bathtub or backyard patio,” according to the document.
Further, “after killing the cats, he dismembered some by removing the heads or cutting off the limbs,” then discarded them in the neighborhood, the document states.
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Sgt. Jeff Ochs, with St. Charles County Police, wrote in the sworn statement, “While speaking with Louzader, I observed several scratches on each of his forearms, hands, fingers and wrist. Initially, Louzader claimed that an elderly female patient at the hospital he works at scratched him, but the scratches were not consistent with scratches made by human fingernails.”
The officer’s report continued: “When he was asked if there was someone at the hospital we could contact to verify his story he changed his story and stated the scratches were from cats trying to flee while he was strangling them.”
The 6-foot-2-inch, 200-pound Louzader, who lives with his grandparents, is suspected of killing at least 12 animals, said St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar, reports the
Charging documents obtained by PEOPLE show that he stands accused of two felony charges of animal abuse “by torture and/or mutilation while animal was alive.”
“We do expect more charges to be filed, and it’s ongoing,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Leslie Knight, tells PEOPLE.
An attorney for Louzader, who was arrested but appears to have been released from St. Charles County jail after a judge set a $50,000 bond, could not immediately be reached.
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