Police have identified a potential suspect in the death of a stallion at Olds College last September. Acting Cpl. S.D.
Police have identified a potential suspect in the death of a stallion at Olds College last September.
Acting Cpl. S.D. Bereza, a spokesman for the Olds RCMP, said last week police interviewed a male Mountain View County resident who was not a student at the college about the death of the horse after investigators received a written anonymous tip.
The man has not been arrested or charged but has agreed to undergo a polygraph test in the next few weeks, Bereza said.
He added the tip came from someone who overheard a conversation at a bar about the death of the horse.
The letter identified the suspect, Bereza said, and also mentioned other people were involved in the incident.
"We know we’re probably looking at more than one person," he said, adding the writer of the anonymous letter only identified the suspect and no one else.
Police reopened their investigation into the death of the horse earlier this month.
Investigators and college officials believe one or more persons opened a number of the school's equine science program's horse pens sometime between 10 p.m. on Sept. 8 and 7:45 a.m. on Sept. 9, releasing as many as seven animals, including five stallions, into a feed alley. The alley's end gates were closed, locking the horses into the alley. A 15-year-old stallion on loan to the college was found dead from a kick to its head on the morning of Sept. 9 and another stallion was found with injuries to its legs.
At the time of the incident, Marion Anderson, an equine science program coordinator at the college, told the Olds Albertan she believed the incident "was a deliberate attempt to put the stallions together, presumably to watch them fight." "Stallions will fight to establish dominance," she said. "When stallions fight it is not pretty. It is violent, traumatic and loud." The college had offered a $4,000 reward for information leading to any arrests in relation to the incident and the school confirmed the reward is still on the table. A college spokesman said the school is "supportive of whatever steps police are taking to solve" the crime. Bereza said if the suspect passes the polygraph test, police will not have any other leads in the investigation.
He added, however, that he would like to track down the letter’s author to learn more about the conversation he or she allegedly heard.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to contact Olds RCMP at 403-556-3323 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
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