Another dog found dead as Kansas police look for suspect who beheaded officer’s puppy
More than a month into a search for the person who beheaded a Kansas police officer’s puppy, another dog has been found dead.
It is the fourth dog to be attacked and the third to die in the past year in Parsons, a southeastern Kansas town of fewer than 10,000 people, according to the last census.
On Tuesday, the Parsons Police Department announced that another dog had been found dead. The local animal hospital determined the dog had been tortured.
The town drew national attention in early December when a police officer reported that her 3-month-old German Shepherd named Ranger had been found decapitated in her backyard.
The latest update from the police department told the story of the latest canine victim. On Dec. 29, a child told police they had found a dead animal wrapped in a blanket and disposed of next to a small bridge near 17th and Felix streets, Sgt. Jason Ludwig, a spokesman for the police department in Labette County, said in a news release Tuesday.
Officers went to the area and found a dog wrapped up and tied with the blanket.
The animal was taken to the Parsons Pet Hospital where an autopsy report eventually showed the dog suffered “severe trauma” to the underside of its abdomen as well as trauma to its neck from a choke chain that was still on the animal when found, Ludwig wrote.
The pet hospital determined that the dog had likely been strangled and beaten to death, police said.
“All trauma was consistent with a human killing the animal and was not consistent with an animal attack nor vehicle strike,” the media release said.
The dog, who police learned was named Drako, had been missing from the 1300 block of South 13th Street, near where the officer’s dog was found.
On Dec. 3, the officer’s dog, Ranger was let out to his owner’s fenced-in backyard in the 1400 block of South 14th Street at about 7 a.m. that day, Ludwig said at the time. The officer, who has remained unnamed, found his body at about 2 p.m.
“Officers determined that the puppy had its head sliced off with a sharpened blade at another location and then the suspects returned the body to the backyard,” Ludwig said at the time.
Parsons Police Chief Robert Spinks, who has two rescue dogs of his own, said in December that he hoped the perpetrator would be prosecuted.
“I cannot even describe my feelings of disdain for the person(s) responsible,” he wrote. “The level of cowardice that would lead someone to kill a little puppy named ‘Ranger’ is astonishing.”
In the past year, in addition to Drako and Ranger, a dog named Zeus was shot and killed and a dog named Bleu was found shot, but lived, police said.
As of Tuesday evening, the reward money for finding the suspect who killed Ranger was upped to $34,000.
“This is very frustrating for everyone involved. Officers want closure to these cases as bad as the general public,” Spinks said in the news release Tuesday. “It is really a shocking development that the $30,000.00 offered has not loosened any tongues. That is what leads us to believe that it is one person acting alone.”
While some persons of interest have been contacted and interviewed, no one has been arrested, police said. They were eliminated as suspects.
Police are encouraging people who live in the southeast area of Parsons to keep their dogs from roaming free. They also encourage owners to keep an eye on animals in fenced-off areas too.
“Any suspicious individuals lurking in vehicles or on foot should be reported to the police department,” Acting Commander Kyle Wiford said in the release.
Anyone with information on the string of dog killings is asked to contact the Parsons Police Department at 620-421-7060, call the Tip Line at 620-421-7057 or email information to tips@parsonspd.com.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 8:44 AM.
