Cat fatally shot in Seattle's Wedgwood area; another is stabbed in South Seattle

A North Seattle woman found a black cat on her back porch on Saturday and thought the feline had been poisoned. So the woman, a pet-owner and animal lover, scooped the cat up and took him to the Ravenna Animal Hospital.

The male cat died en route from Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood to the hospital. Once there, the woman and hospital workers were quite upset when an X-ray revealed that the cat had been fatally shot with what appeared to be a round from a small caliber handgun.

In an apparently unrelated incident, The King County Sheriff's Department reported today that a man was booked into the King County Jail on Sunday on investigation of animal cruelty for allegedly stabbing and slashing a cat who was a therapy pet for people at The Cross Church in South Seattle. The man, who had an outstanding warrant on unrelated charges, is being held on $50,000 bail.

The cat from North Seattle was brought into the animal hospital Saturday afternoon.

"It was terribly, terribly emotional. She was as distraught as I was," said Jakob Miller, who works in client services at the animal hospital and who was at the clinic when the woman brought the cat in. "The X-ray showed it wasn't a BB, it wasn't a pellet. It was a bullet from a gun."

The bullet lodged in the cat's chest and the entry wound indicated the cat was shot from below, Miller said, suggesting that perhaps the cat was shot while walking along the top of a fence. He said the veterinarian called local animal-control officers, "but they couldn't do anything — there were no witnesses, no microchip, no information about the cat" or its owner.

Miller said there wasn't information or evidence to warrant a phone call to Seattle police. "We would've if we could've, believe me," he said.

The bullet was not removed. Photos were taken of the cat's body before it was sent to a company that cremates animal remains, he said.

The South Seattle incident involved a cat named "Scatt," according to Pasado's Safe Haven, an animal-welfare advocacy group that has offered to pay the cat's vet bills.

Scatt showed up at the church nearly 10 years ago and though initially wary of people, he became lovable to the men who are in alcohol- and drug-rehabilitation programs at the church, located in the 11000 block of 1st Avenue South. According to a Pasado animal-cruelty investigator, the man suspected of breaking the cat's ribs and causing critical internal injuries was in a rehab program and admitted to a church employee that he "gutted the cat."

Scatt is in intensive care at a South Seattle animal hospital.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com