The Great Kitty Caper and other crimes

>> In 1998, city streets were a war zone for pets

by PHILIP PREVILLE

Imagine what it must have been like to be someone's pet cat in Mile-End this past year. You'd probably never set foot outside again.

City streets are already dangerous enough for cats. You have to constantly negotiate your way around a number of familiar sticky situations: other people's cats and dogs, the Berger Blanc pet-catchers or the occasional unscrupulous restaurateur. House cats who dare to step outside already need a full slate of survival skills.

But this year, it seems, city streets became even more dangerous. Then again, perhaps the streets are no less safe than usual; perhaps media reports have simply made it seem worse. In either case, however, it's clear that Montreal's city streets are a gruesome labyrinth of treachery for animals of all kinds.

A roundup of the year's events:

June 11: The Mirror breaks a story about a series of cat disappearances in the Mile-End district. The pet-snatchings continue even after the story, and by the end of the month the missing-cat count in Mile- End rises to approximately two dozen.

Officials with both the SPCA and the Berger Blanc muse aloud about the possibility that the missing cats may have been kidnapped by profiteers, who then sell them to research laboratories for experimentation. According to the Humane Society, labs will pay up to $35 for a dog or cat.

SPCA director Pierre Barnoti explains that pet dealers used to hang out in front of the SPCA itself, offering to take the dogs and cats people are bringing in and give them a good home--only to then sell them to labs. The SPCA regularly chases such nefarious characters away.

June 25: A smelly garbage bag in a Mile-End vacant lot prompts residents to call the city. Upon inspection, the bag appears to contain the severed, mutilated body parts of several cats.

Local residents form the Mile-End Animal Advocacy Group in an effort to force an investigation by the police, who have thus far shown little interest in the disappearances.

Early July: MUC police begin their investigation as vigilantism grips the neighbourhood. Suspicion begins to center around one local Mile-End resident, who keeps a cage in his back yard. The man, however, is gone on vacation and is unavailable for comment.

A short time later, investigating police officers question a local male resident in connection with the disappearances. Soon thereafter, angry posters with the man's name, address and phone number are posted throughout the neighbourhood.

Late July: Police arrest the man they previously questioned and charge him with cruelty to animals after he confesses to killing three cats.

The man insists, however, that he is not responsible for the garbage-bag mutilations. Unanswered questions abound.

September: Yet another theory on the missing cats begins to circulate on the grapevine, this time focusing attention on the Sunday Tam-Tam on Mount Royal: apparently, some drummers personally kill cats and use their skins for their bongos. This theory, like all others, goes unproven.

November: Reports begin to surface about mutilated animal carcasses found in city parks. On Mount Royal, decapitated dogs and cats have been turning up over the last five months; SPCA director Barnoti suggests those killings appear to have been satanic rituals. In addition, eight dogs were found skinned in a single incident in LaSalle.

And in an unrelated incident, piglets, baby goats and chickens are found drained of their blood in a north-end city park. The incident appears to have been a ritual sacrifice.

No direct link is made between any of these killings and the Mile-End cat disappearances.

December: A man reports witnessing an incident in Carré St-Louis, in which a group of people showed up in a van after sunset, set up two large cages and spread birdseed underneath them. According to the eyewitness account, the perpetrators made off with about 100 pigeons.

This incident, like the park mutilations and most of the Mile-End cat disappearances, remain unsolved. Lock up your pets!