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Cat Caught in Kill Trap in Parsons – Parsons Advocate
By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The Parsons community is torn this week over an incident on Spruce Street involving the purposeful trapping of a cat in a Conibear kill trap on the sidewalk. The incident first came to light on March 25th via Facebook through the “We Are Parsons – West Virginia” community page when Seth Roy posted a picture to the page with the telling of the incident.
The incident did not, however, occur the 25th, according to witness and Roy’s fiance Nicoda Evans. The incident occurred previously, but was brought to light that day out of frustration at the lack of what she perceived as adequate seriousness by local law enforcement.
Evans said that she was on the phone and on en route to her sister, Melissa Coker, home when her sister’s teens and a teen friend found and attempted to assist the cat. The teens at first thought they heard a cat fight and went to investigate and break up the fight when they made the discovery of the cat with its head caught in a Conibear trap on the sidewalk under a truck owned by Darrell (D.L) Tasker, a neighbor.
Coker and the teens asked Tasker for assistance, according to Evans, who was still on the phone with Coker. Tasker grabbed the chain on the trap and threw trap and cat into the bed of his truck and said he was “taking it to his garage” to remove and then proceeded to get into the truck to leave with the cat, Evans said.
“The gentleman said, ‘You can’t open that trap, you’ll break a finger,’” Evans said. “And the boy said, ‘Well, we we’re going to try.’”
Coker grabbed the cat and handed it to one of the teens and they gently set the cat on the ground. The picture, Evans said, was taken initially only for law enforcement evidence. The intent was never for malice, Evans said. Over the course of a half hour, the three teens attempted to pry the cat free until the trap was open, just wide enough for the girl to push the cat’s head free. At which time, the cat ran off into the darkness. No one was able to catch it. The teens were crying, according to Evans, so she escorted them to the house while Coker and Tasker spoke with authorities.
“The cat did survive, it is alive,” Evans said.
Tucker County Sheriff Jake Kopec said that all agencies responded to the incident. The call was initially dispatched to City Police, but the Sheriff’s Department has jurisdiction over the whole of Tucker County. Along with City and County, Animal Control, also responded.
Evans claimed the property owner had placed the trap under his truck on a public sidewalk within City limits. Other claims Evans made included that the property owner leaves cat food on his property for cats to lure them to the property and that prior to this incident, he had only used live traps. The day after, Evans said, a live trap was on his property.
“If you want to trap them because they are in your yard, first of all, stop baiting them to your yard, but if you’re trapping them and you’re calling the Animal Shelter, that’s ok,” Evans said. “But what he used, that’s vicious.”
Evans said that she has remained in contact with the Parsons Police Department, Tucker County Sheriff’s Department, Officer Prickett at the West Virginia State Police and has even placed calls to Tucker County Prosecuting Attorney Savannah Hull Wilkins office, but has not yet received a reply. When it comes to law enforcement, Evans said she feels like the case is being passed around.
“I’m upset about it in general, but I’m upset the cat went through that and that nothing seems to be being done about it.”
The Parsons Advocate reached out to Tucker County Animal Shelter Director Stacey Canfield about the situation and what authority County Animal Control had over animal cruelty cases such as this.
“Unfortunately, as far as Animal Control goes, that would not fall under our department,” Canfield said. “Our animal control response is to feline nuisance complaints, such as the TNR (trap and release), that we wish he would be doing, or dogs at large, barking dogs, biting dogs, things like that.”
Canfield said that, while she felt truly sorry for what had happened, her department’s hands were tied and the matter could only be handled by law enforcement. Canfield said there exists a City Ordinance
“We do not respond or have the legal authority to respond to anything that is cruelty or abuse related and obviously that is the category that, that would fall under,” Canfield said.
Canfield said there is a City Ordinance in effect that states that if an individual is trapping cats, that only non-lethal methods can be employed.
“Obviously that style of trap that was used, was not a non-lethal trapping method,” Canfield said. “So that would fall under either the Sheriff’s Department or City Police.”
The Parsons Advocate spoke with Tucker County Sheriff Jake Kopec. He said while there are three things that the department would need to have to file charges for animal abuse, two of the most important factors cannot currently be met.
One of the largest barriers for the department currently is the lack of a victim coming forward. Kopec said that without an owner coming forward to claim ownership of the cat, as well as injury, no charges could be filed. Evans said that she had been in contact with a relative of the owner of the cat and that the owner wished to remain anonymous due to backlash from the community from people claiming the incident was his fault because his cat got out of the house.
“Could it be animal abuse? We’ve got to have a victim come forward,” Kopec said. “No owner to this animal has come forward. There’s no victim. There’s no one that’s said ‘You’ve hurt my cat.’”
Kopec did emphasize however, that Tucker County and the City of Parsons both have leash laws in effect. While most people think of leash laws in regards to dogs, Kopec said according to his understanding the law applies to pet cats, as well.
“This really crosses some difficult fences,” Kopec said.
Another barrier is a lack of confession. Kopec said that he knows no one is going to admit to purposefully laying the trap with the intent to injure or kill cats in the neighborhood. Kopec said he is aware of allegations that this has been happening for years, but without proof there is nothing his department can do.
“To convict someone or charge someone of a crime, we have to prove elements of a crime,” Kopec said. “One: We have to prove that the trap was specifically set out to catch a cat and we have to prove that by somebody admitting to it. That has not happened.”
Kopec said the only element that can be proved is that it was a trap used outside of trapping season. However, the incident did occur on private property, which in some cases can complicate matters.
“This is on private property,” Kopec said. “His private property. What are you allowed to do on your private property? We’ve got to respect people’s private property, as well.”
The last element of the crime would be the question of animal abuse. To satisfy that, Kopec asked if the animal belonged to someone and if someone had come forward. To that, the answer has been no.
The trap itself, would fall under Department of Natural Resources, according to Canfield. A lot of factors, however, would need to be determined: the size of the trap, whether or not it could be legally set on land or in water and the fact that the trap was set but not tagged properly with the owner’s information, according to Canfield.
“DNR has gathered the trap and is doing an investigation because of it being a water-based trap and its not trapping season,” Kopec said.
Kopec said that Tucker County has several large colonies of feral cats. Parsons is among the cities in the County with one of these colonies. The Animal Shelter is No Kill and runs a TNR program that traps, neuters and releases feral cats in the community. Kopec said the question of feral cats raises an even bigger question of whether they are classified as a wild animal because they were never owned by a human or as a pet because they are semi-domestic.
“I don’t know how to feel about it,” Kopec said. “All I can do is say what the law is.”
The Parsons Advocate also reached out to City of Parsons Police Chief Kevin Keplinger who reiterated what Sheriff Kopec said on the issue of the cat’s owner’s wish to remain anonymous and not wanting to come forward.
“As far as we’re concerned, no victim no crime,” Keplinger said. “Without the owner willing to come forward, there really isn’t much we can do.”
Kopec said that DNR has confiscated the trap and has opened an investigation into the incident. The Parsons Advocate reached out to the Department of Natural Resources District office in Elkins for comment and was referred to the Captain, but was only able to leave a message. As of press time, no reply has been made.
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