USA- Family finds pet pigs tortured, killed

There is a sick, cruel murderer somewhere out there in the Tampa Bay area -- a killer who tortured the victims by letting dogs attack them, then stabbing them and mutilating the dead bodies. The victims? Two baby pigs being raised as a school project by a pair of little girls in Plant City. We've got you covered


Two baby pigs were killed in their cage.

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=0FDE9EF70EFEABD6D9CCFC81160A65D4?contentId=4694411&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

PLANT CITY - There is a sick, cruel murderer somewhere out there in the Tampa Bay area -- a killer who tortured the victims by letting dogs attack them, then stabbing them and mutilating the dead bodies. The victims? Two baby pigs being raised as a school project by a pair of little girls in Plant City.

Saturday morning, the Farkas family dug two fresh graves for two little pigs named Rebel and Dixie. The two little girls they belonged to adored them. Twins Lindsay and Leann Farkas fed them and cuddled them and cherished them.

"I've got the cutest little picture of her with mud all over her face from that pig kissing her, and to think that these people just killed those little pigs," lamented Judy Johnson, the girls' grandmother.

Their mother, Jamie Farkas, added, "you not only hurt the animal, but you hurt the child, you hurt the family."

The 13-year-old twin girls walked up on the scene of a slaughter early Saturday morning when they went out to give the pigs breakfast. They found Rebel and Dixie dead. They had been stabbed to death overnight.

"They're baby pigs... Helpless animals! They don't have teeth, they can't bite, they're defenseless... And that's what makes this so senseless," Jamie Farkas continued.

The family called the Plant City Police Department about the crime. A police officer investigating the felony animal cruelty case found the pigs' little ears shredded, the pigpen damaged from where Rebel and Dixie had tried frantically to get away from their killer, and dog prints and bite marks.

The working theory? That someone let their dog loose to torture the pigs overnight Saturday, while he or she watched. Then that someone stepped in and made the death blow with a knife or a spear.

"I don't understand why someone can be so cruel and hard to do this to a person, an animal," Farkas said sadly.

The girls' mother continued, explaining that the killer also mutilated Rebel and Dixie's corpses... presumably to take away a little keepsake from the killing.

"Likely used as a trophy -- for bragging? Reward to a dog?" she guessed. "I don't know... I don't do crimes like this, so I don't know, but it was taken -- a perfect square of skin was taken from that pig."

Grandparents Mike and Judy Johnson can't recall anything this bad ever happening to them before.

"This is... this is beyond cruelty, as far as anything I think that we've ever had happen to us," Judy Johnson recalled.

So, the girls spent their Saturday not playing in the pigpen as they normally would have, but at a little funeral for the little friends they won't ever play with again.

The Farkas family has learned of more pig stabbings in the area, which is why they wanted to come forward to warn everyone in the community. They're also asking for the public's help in finding the killer and offering a $100 reward for information.

Meanwhile Plant City police are actively working the case, too. The culprit will be facing first-degree felony animal cruelty charges.