Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
A reward of $3,000 is being offered for the arrest of the person(s) responsible for killing six more goats at a Crescent Hill Road property.
The Boer goats, owned by Randy and Tami Schoonover, appear to have been killed Saturday night or Sunday, Oct. 1 or 2, Randy Schoonover said.
The latest killings came after seven of the family’s goats were killed Aug. 28 by someone with a small-caliber firearm. The goats in both cases were shot, mostly through the neck, as they grazed on a hillside property belonging to the Schoonovers’ neighbor Sherman Weld. In both cases, neither the Schoonovers nor their neighbors heard anything.
The case is being investigated by the Oregon State Police and Linn County Sheriff’s deputies. Anyone with information should call the toll-free department TIP line at 1-866-557-9988.
“We’re doing everything we can,” said Deputy Chris Fenerty, one of two investigators handling the case. “We’re looking into all possible leads” ? and, he added, they have some. “It’s just difficult. It’s a remote area and there’s not a lot of evidence.”
“I’m just sick,” Schoonover said Friday as he surveyed the carcasses of two goats lying on the ground. ”
The shooter appears to be the same person, Schoonover said, noting that in both cases the shooter appeared to be very deliberate in stalking and killing the goats. A young bobcat was also found dead in the area and wildlife officials are investigating that killing, which appeared to have been carried out by the same shooter.
The Schoonovers had 54 goats before the killings began. Boers are a South African meat goat that are white with a reddish-brown patch. The couple began raising Boers three years ago.
“This was going to be the year of the girl goat,” Schoonover said. “(The dead goats) were going to be our breeding stock for 10 to 12 years. Somebody comes in and knocks us back a year in one day. They’ve decimated us.”
Neighbor Eric Tagle, who stopped by to help investigate the area, said he was shocked.
“It’s just incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” he said. “I just don’t get it.”
Schoonover said that if someone had killed one of the goats for food, he’d be upset but less so than he is now.
“This is way above and beyond that,” he said. “This is incomprehensible.”
Said Tagle: “It kind of makes you feel a little disappointed in human nature.”
Fenerty said that investigators need help from the public.
“Any time they see something odd or suspicious, they should call,” he said. “We would think the person who’s done this has told someone.”