ANIMAL PEOPLE is the
leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage
of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has
no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.
Dennis L. Rader, 59, longtime code enforcement and animal control officer
for Park City, Kansas, a Wichita suburb, was on February 27, 2005 charged
with serially killing 10 people in Wichita since 1974. The killings were
claimed in letters to local media from “BTK,” short for “Bind,
Torture, Kill.” Rader’s tenure in animal control coincided with
two long interludes between murders. Park City and Wichita are both in
Sedgewick County, where the rate of animal control killing per 1,000 human
residents is more than twice the U.S. norm.
Chi Luu Linville, 57, of Loxahatchee, Florida, was on March 11 convicted
of trying to hire Palm Beach County sheriff’s detective Kim Bradley
to kill animal control officer Tammie Crawford in October 2003, after
Crawford impounded Linville’s goats and cattle, and said she would
return to impound Linville’s pigs and cats. Explained Palm Beach
Post staff writers William Cooper Jr. and Larry Keller, “A judge
had barred Linville––cited many times for neglect and animals
running loose––from keeping animals without court approval.
Linville feared losing an agricultural exemption on her 10-acre property
if all animals were removed, assistant state attorney Dan Galo said. Linville
testified that her property taxes would triple if she lost the exemption.”
Linville contended that Bradley entrapped her by posing as the stepdaughter
of an acquaintance.
