New York police have arrested a man they say hung the bodies of 25 dead cats in plastic bags from a tree earlier this year.
Rene Carcamo, 60, allegedly took the feline carcasses, placed them in black plastic bags and hung them from a tree in a park in Yonkers, Westchester County, the New York Daily News reported. The suspect, who lives near the gruesome scene, was arrested and charged with illegally disposing of dead animals.
Staff from the Yonkers Department of Public Works came across the cat graveyard on April 24, officials told the Daily News. In addition to the 25 cats hanging from the tree, more carcasses were found on the ground.
"Many of these cats were already decomposed, where there was only a skull or a skeleton and then you had some fresher ones where they had only been there three days" Ernest Lungaro, director of the SPCA's Humane Law Enforcement Unit, told the Daily News back in April.
It is not immediately clear if Carcamo is responsible for the animal deaths. Tests conducted on three of the cats showed they suffered blows to the head, according to the Associated Press.
Lungaro previously questioned Carcamo in connection to the dead cats but it wasn't until two kittens he owned were found in need of medical attention that he became a prime suspect, the Daily News reported.
Lungaro said he ordered Carcamo to seek help for the cats, which were found suffering from conjunctivitis. The animals were eventually removed when Carcamo did not comply.
Carcamo was also charged with two counts of animal cruelty in connection the neglected kittens.
