Stolen Pets Reports Seem to Be Bogus

The Springfield, Ohio Police Division said Monday morning they have received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten.

A social media post originally from a Springfield Facebook group went viral nationally in recent days. The original poster did not cite first-hand knowledge of an incident. Instead they claimed that their neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat and found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home being carved up to be eaten.

The poster also claimed “Rangers” and police told them that “they have been doing it” at Snyder Park, too, with ducks and geese.

The Sprinfield News-Sun reports police said they were aware of the social media post but that this was “not something that’s on our radar right now.” The post received tens of thousands of impressions.

In a case that some were confusing with Springfield, police in Canton, Ohio, 175 miles northeast of Springfield, recently charged a woman with cruelty to companion animals for allegedly killing and eating a cat in a neighborhood in front of multiple people, according to USA Today.