DELHI — A show pig that was strangled, stabbed and hung on a tree at Delhi High School has left students and educators like William Snyder sick.
“That it was stabbed multiple times and then it was hung by a rope and torched. It was pretty brutal,” said Snyder, the school’s FFA adviser.
He said the grisly discovery was made on Sunday evening. The pig was about to be donated to a student. He said the girl who found the pig is distraught.
“She was in tears, and she was pretty upset, and she told me the pig was dead. That’s the words that she could barely get out. She was crying pretty good,” he said.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said a 16-year-old boy has confessed to torturing and killing the animal. The boy is suspected of torturing the pig with a butane lighter.
When the sheriff was asked if the suspect gave a reason for his actions, he replied: “Not really much of one, that’s why it’s really kind of lame.”
How did investigators find the boy? The sheriff said he left a trail on social media. Actually posting videos of the torture on Snapchat.
“This person decided to think it was really cool and actually posted it on some kind of social media,” Warnke said.
Now the teen is facing felony animal cruelty.
The sheriff doesn’t think the teen acted alone and sends a warning to the other people who may have helped strangle and kill the pig.
“Anybody that was helping him, you probably better come forward with it now because we have to continue the investigation. I find you later, I’m not going to be very nice about it,” Warnke warned.
The sheriff also said the community has offered to replace the show pig.
The boy may be facing additional charges because he was on probation for a burglary.
