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Miami Cops Hunt Horse Killers

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 31, 2009 11:30 AM CDT

(Newser) – Miami police have a mystery on their hands. Someone, or a group of people, is slaughtering horses and making off with the meat, the AP reports. Since January, 17 horses have been found dead, their butchered bodies generally left by the roadside or in pastures. Animal rights groups believe the killers are selling the meat on the black market.

Police say they’ve heard “anecdotal evidence” of such a trade and are working to confirm or deny its existence. But an investigator for South Florida’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is confident the black market is thriving, with horse meat selling for $7-20 a pound. “South Florida is a melting pot,” he says. “These people grow up eating this meat.

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A horse lays butchered Monday, July 27, 2009, at a Miami stable. Someone had tried to burn the body after the police investigation. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Richard Couto plays with a baby horse, whose mother was butchered at a Miami stable, Monday, July 27, 2009. Since January, police say at least 17 horses have been butchered. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

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It's a pet for God's sake. It's not been raised to suffer a death like that. - Ivonne Rodriguez, whose pet horse Geronimo was found decapitated and butchered

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