This is going to be a long posting, but it tells a lot of what has been going on when it comes to the deer killing problems and the fact that the guy was finally caught.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12783244/ is the last group photos of the boys.

Picture of the Bucks of the future. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12783314/

I figured that 2014 would be the first year ending in a 4 that wasn't going to be bad for me, but I was wrong. Things really changed on January 10th when someone started popping off my beloved big bucks. As for the person who has been behind the morbid slaughterings, I really have no words I want to waste in describing guy other that greed and stupidity got the best of him. Can't call him a hunter, because real hunters don't go around stocking pet deer from ones back yard. To tell you the truth, many of the local hunters are pissed off at him because it gives them a bad name. Can't blame it on guns because all of them were killed by a crossbow and a possible knife. To tell you the truth, crossbows aren't really used for hunting, but more of a collectors item that is fun to shoot. I can't blame it on someone holding a grudge against me or my roomy, the guy is just a felon that can’t really work any other job other than contract labor from a small town in East Texas. He was tired in the next county over and just happen to be passing buy on day and saw the deer so he got all Rocky-Rambo to impress his friends on mine and a few others expense.

Now before I get too far, I would like to thank those who showed great support, and generous donations. I would also like to thank the local law, and especially the local game warden whom did an awesome job. Without all of the above I would have probably lost all of my big bucks, and along with a few does, but the price was great. Yea it cost just about over a grand to get all of the security stuff, and the loss of losing work, and sleep, but it was well worth it, because it just building a better case against the perpetrator. As for the boys who were lost because of what happened, how do you put a value on them? Yea I can try to sue for damages, but no amount of money is going to bring them back, and besides I don’t think that the guy who killed them really has a pot to piss in. Yet I have to come up with some sort of dollar value, and it’s looking like about K30, but I want to go for top dollar value, not only were they trophy bucks, but they were rare for being tamed and they weren’t even raised on the bottle.
As far as I know, it all started the night of January 10th. I remember because I was fussing that my vacation was almost over. “The reason why I say that, because the perpetrator could have been planning things out way before that, but we just didn’t know it.” The school across the highway was having a big game, and one of the things that we do is light the city’s water tower which is three blocks over down a dirt road from me. In the middle of the morning, someone came to the door and said that there was a deer out. We figured that it was just Benny who is the only one that gets out was just sneaking in the corn again and didn’t pay it much attention. “Benny started getting out when a high speed chase ended up crashing through the fence of one of the yards. He went flying over while one of the white does wasn’t as lucky. Since then he hopes the fence when he feels like it.” The next morning my house mate woke me up and said that there were deer loose. I was just hoping that he was seeing some of the other deer that roam town that got loose from a different ranch. I looked out the kitchen window and saw two does, and one of the fawn bucks go running by.

Now since I’ve been raising these animals, I have developed a plan on what to do if deer were to get out, and each time I have used this plan the deer really hasn’t been a problem. First thing I do is I go looking for where they might have gotten out from, and then fix the problem. In this case I didn’t find anything from my direction like an open gate, or a hole in the fence. My roommate found the feed gate open, but it wasn’t left open, it was opened up from someone other than us. We double latch that gate because some of them learned how to lift the main latch with their noise. The giveaway was that the secondary latch which is actually a chain with a clip on it was taken off from the fence end, met that someone opened it while standing in the deer pen. I found just one boot print that looked out of place, but we both figured that someone from the visiting school was just playing a prank like in the movie, 12 Monkeys. So deer were running up and down the highway, in the neighbor’s yard, the pasture behind us, but in only took less than an hour to get them all back except for Houdini. We figured that he was just exploring. Then I got to thinking that he never got out the last couple of times when deer got loose. “Yea I know that his name is Houdini but that was from when he was young. He used to find a small hole and then couldn’t figure out how to get back in the yard, the problem was shortly fixed.” As days went by, there were still no signs of him, and with him being pure white, we thought that it was kind of odd that no one gave us any sighting reports, because when Benny gets out, we sure hear about it. So we figured that he might have been taken to be a brew buck.

January 23/2014 would have been about two weeks that have gone by since Houdini went missing, the local school was having another game. I was in my art studio working on some projects when I started to hear some strange noises coming from outside. I heard what sounded like plastic thrashing along with fence noises. I figured that Benny must have been in the corn storage again, then I got a little bit of hopes that maybe Houdini that might have come home. When I got out side, I saw nothing, but when I glanced over I notice a white deer standing under the street light. I turned out that I was just Ke’less my white doe, but I decided to head out there anyways, which is when I discovered Gazelle shot up with crossbow target arrows. Needless to say I was both pissed off and hurt. I also thought that it might have been someone with a grudge about something, or they wanted to test out their new toy that they got for Christmas, but as time went one, once again we heard nothing. We contacted the law, and you pretty much know the rest if you read an earlier report. I did Facebook what happened to Gazelle, and even the local media got involved. I also shut off the small easement area. What was weird, even with just Gazelle, and Houdini, it was starting to feel empty in the back yard.

This next part didn’t get to publicize, because we were hoping that someone would slip.

On the morning of January 28/2014, I was heading to work when I notice the three fawn bucks stand at the far corner post just outside of the dog yard. For some reason it didn’t hit me right so I decided to do a head count. Everyone was accounted for except for Banjo, “Renamed to Lexx-Banjo,” and Lexx. I could see maybe Banjo hopping the fence but his father was just way too old. When I was looking for them, I just happened to see Banjo hoping around the neighbors hard, so I went into the closed off easement to let him in and that is when I discovered that we had a serious problem on our hands. I found lots of what I didn’t know at the time was called lung blood, and then you could see where a Lexx’s body was dragged off down the fence line, then hung on the fence to bleed out. They then went through the neighbor’s gate. I ended up losing a day’s worth of work because I had to stick around to talk to the law, and the local game warden. Losing Lexx was very hard on me, and there was no reason for it. It also changed everything on what we thought was happening. There was no grudge thing going on, but the local law thought that it might have been someone that was just hungry. Someone thing had to be done and quickly, that is when I asked for help because there was no way I could afford a security system on my own along with the other stuff that I had to get. I also found evidence that Banjo was shot in the leg, and that he had another wound that was in question, but he’s doing OK.

After the game warden left, I made the discovery that Ke’less my white doe, who is Lexx’s blood sister had a broken right front upper leg. The game warden said that it could heal but it would just take time. I feel sorry for the old doe, and after all the deer that were recently lost I have a hard time deciding on whether or not if she should be put down. The bone isn’t exposed but it did poke out at one point but went back into the leg. She gets around OK, but I’m just worried that it might start infecting her health.

On Febuary 4th, I was heading out to work and I notice that Benny wasn’t in the yard nor was the top of the corn tote knocked off. I knew right away that something wasn’t right but I was hoping that he was just wondering late. So I went to the cameras that were put up in place, and I got a surprise that that three out of the five caught the intruder by using inferred night vision, and some of pictures came out very well. I immediately called the local game warden, and he wanted me to email the pictures to him ASAP. He also told me that he had a lead. So that night he and another member spent of the law spent the night in my pasture, but they came up with nothing other than a not very common SUV that they were informed of was sighted leaving my place. The guy never came back on my property and I found out the reason later.

The next morning I was heading to work. I was probably the worst day he had so far for the winter of 2014. Benny was still not to be seen, and I figured that he must have gotten it the night before. I started receiving phone calls that people saw him running through out town barely alive with three arrows threw him, and every time that someone saw him he managed to run off. The game warden rushed to town, and then headed off to the next county over to catch the guy before he headed off. At first when the guy was confronted, he was denying everything till the game warden pulled out the arrows that he used. He finally started to tell it all on what he did when it came to my deer, and some of the stuff that I learned was quite disturbing.

To start off, I learned that he did kill Houdini. He served him for supper for a Super-Bowl party that he was hosting. He also had him European Mounted, and has is crossbow in his rack as if he was all proud that he got him on some exotic game hunt. He also told the game warden on how he field dressed him in my own pasture.

On the night that I found Gazelle all shot up with arrows, it turned out that I walked right passed him while I was walking through the dog yard. He was hiding behind an old pecan tree with a deadly weapon, and I was very lucky that I didn’t get shot at. Remember when I wrote that I was hearing weird noises, what that was because one of the arrows went into the house and he was trying to dig it out, but it broke.

The game warden showed me a picture of Lexx with his head standing on his pelt which cleaned up pretty nicely.

According to the cameras that was put up, he spent two hours hoping that Benny would eventually dye, but instead he hopped the fence. So he showed up the next night with the odd SUV that he was driving, but had no luck in finding him once again. He never got Benny but he had to be put down, and we buried him next to Gazelle after the Game warden took has antlers for evidence. I would like to make a monument for them at some point.

If the guy didn’t get caught, he would have eventually gotten Banjo too, and I still worry that he might still get tagged because the guy was never arrested on which I will explain more about down the line. The game warden insured me that he wouldn’t be showing up on the property, and that all of his weapons were taken from him along with his trophies. Yea he’s busted but no amount of money is going to bring them back, and yes they do die off, but I wanted it to be done naturally.

You are probably wondering on why it took so long to catch the guy who was killing off my bucks, and why he hasn’t been arrested. Well to start, it wasn’t an easy case to solve. Like I mentioned earlier, we thought that the first one escaped or was kidnapped. Other than the gate being left opened there was no signs that something was even killed. When he opened the main access gate, we think that it might have been done as a diversion, so we weren’t really looking for any other evidence. As for the second one, Gazelle, I walked in during the middle of the crime so that kind of messed up the guy’s plan. It would have probably been better off if I did let the crime go through so I could have found a different kind of evidence. The third killing was when everything changed on what was going on. It showed that it wasn’t being done out of retaliation. The fourth one is what got him caught. The guy’s biggest mistake was that he got greedy, and if it wasn’t for that of wanting all of my boys, he would have gotten away with it. The other thing was that between every time between killing one, the amount of days kept on getting shorter and shorter. Two weeks between the first two, one weeks between the second and third, and then four days between the last two. It was also a hit and miss on trying to catch him because his times were always different. Don’t know about the first one, 8pm on the second one, not really sure about the third weather if it was late night or early morning, but was recorded between 10pm, to 12:15am on the last. So it was a bad case of hit and miss from hiding out in the pasture. What is real weird is why didn’t any of the dogs bark? I wonder if they might have been given some sleeping pills because two of them were out there a couple of times, yet none of them did anything.

The other thing that made the case hard to solve was the fact that no one was saying anything, and there were plenty of ears out waiting for something. The game warden like many cops informants weren’t saying a thing, and there wasn’t a peep at any of the local schools and you know kids, they just can’t keep their mouths shut. “Come to think of it, so can’t many adults. Give them a few drinks and they will spill their guts out about most anything.” The big break came after Super-Bowl Sunday when some called a game warden from a different county and asked if they were hunting loose fallow deer on the Brazos River. So he called the local game warden about it, and he said no, but that they were being poached from a place in Newcastle. I don’t know who the informant was, it could have been one of the guest at the party, or someone as a processing plant, but whoever it was, he played a big part, and I’m very grateful for it.

One of the big question is, how come the guy wasn’t arrested. Yea I was pissed about that too, because I wanted him to spend some time behind bars with Big Bubba, but the last explained it to me that if he was arrested, he would have been out because most likely someone would have bailed him out, and then it would have been game over. The way that it is going down, is that with him confessing, statements, and a value of the deer, the local law can build a better case against him, so in hopes that he will do more time and maybe even go to prison. Personally there have been several things that have crossed my mind that I would like to do to this creep, but I’m going to let the law do their thing. I’m going to try to get as much value for the deer that can, and then I will be slapping a lawsuit against him, and even if he doesn’t have the money, I will hold a judgment against him.

Now how do you put a value on the deer that I lost? I should out that Houdini was worth 5K in some places just to shoot, because of him being white and having a trophy rack and then you add the value of being tame on top of that. I would say about 2x, and then another amount for being a proven brew buck. So I would say about 3x the value total. Then you have Benny, who was an exceptional buck he was tame and most of the town folks love him except for when he got into their gardens. The face that he was shot on my property and not running loose, I can get the value out of him. I would give him the same value as Houdini. Gazelle I would say maybe 10K total because he was still young, but he did have that dark Persian color to him, and he was also tame. Lexx who was 14 years old I’m going to say was worth $10 or more. He was a proven brew buck but he was retired. His last rack was real wacky do to his age. I also don’t think that he was going to last much longer, but it would have been nice to see him die a natural death that wasn’t man created. Then you have his son, Lexx II “Banjo”. He looks and acts so much like Lexx that it’s not even funny. Yea I’m going to get the, they look all the same, but from raising these critters for so long, I can see their parents in them.

Back to the value, no matter how much money they are worth, no amount is going to bring them back. Yea the money would be great to fix things, but I have a feeling this is going to be a bad lost. The bucks were the main attractions on who people came out and visited the deer. Yea the does are cute, but they boys had a better sense of humor then the does do, but they are slowly coming around. Many have stopped by to take pictures and to give them treats, and many of the people who know them has suffered the pain of them being killed like me and my roomy has.

What’s to do? Well the only think that one can do, is to get back up on your feet and start raising a new batch of boys. Banjo has move up in rank quite fast, and now he’s the Alpha of the heard, and has three cocky new button heads to deal with. Mini, who is out of Benny and Na’toff. He has his Dad’s face, but his Momma’s dark deep brown eyes and hair color. He is going to look more like a Mini Gazelle, then a Benny. Kono who is a Chocolate. Even threw his father, Houdini was almost pure white, he got his Momma’s, Mocha’s Chocolate features. Then you have Newdini. I’m not sure if Houdini is his father but he is named after him. His mom, Ke’less is a pure white doe. I hope he grows to be a fine buck. The other good news is that the does are pregenet and hopefully there will be some nice Houdini, and Benny babies out of them. Possible count is 7 fawns.

Once again, thanks for all your Support, and Donations in help solving this problem. Even though the guy was caught, and a stop has been put of the killings. There is still a long road ahead to rebuild, and then the fun stuff of trials.