ANSON COUNTY, N.C. -- Last weekend, the Sheriff’s office responded to a call at a Wadesboro cemetery for a report of animal cruelty – and what they found has left some speculating that devil worshipping may be occurring in the town.

Police officers that responded to the call said that they arrived at Garris Grove Cemetery to find nearly a half dozen farm animals killed and mutilated.

Anson County Sheriff Tommy Allen admitted that he had never seen anything like this before, and said that it is a “really bizarre situation that makes you think of some kind of ritual.”

While the investigators stopped short of declaring it witchcraft of devil worship, others in the community did not.

“I’m still saying works of the devil, devil worshippers,” said Lawrence Smith, the cemetery groundskeeper who discovered the mutilated animals. “Ain’t no God in them, ain’t no God about them.”

According the police report one of the animals had been stretched across a tombstone before it was killed. There was also evidence that incense had been burned around the gravesite.

Allen said that there have been no reports of stolen animals, and he is not ruling out a teenage prank. He said that the perpetrators could have “followed something they read in a book, saw in a movie, or saw on TV.”

Smith does not think that it was a prank; he said the signs do not support that idea.

“Worshipping devils out here in the cemetery, this is a resting place,” he said. “Isn’t that what this is for – a resting place for the dead?”

If the sheriff’s office is able to make any arrests, the suspects will be charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. They are urging anyone with information to call (704) 695-3111.

9/22/2006 5:01 PM
By: Adam Shub
News 14 Charlotte