Idaho mutilation

Crop circles found in a wheat field near the City of Teton in August of 2002 drew attention from across the nation, but the mutilated cow found in a pasture south of Driggs last Thursday has commanded the attention of sheriff’s deputies more than UFO hunters, despite the paranormal nature of the heifer’s death.

Zach Griggs leases pastureland for nearly 100 head of cattle near 3000 South in Teton County. Last Thursday, he arrived at this location to change the use of pastures and noticed his cows were scattered. He initially thought duck hunters had disturbed his cattle and then he noticed that one of his cows was dead.

He approached the animal and identified that its udders were removed, along with its anus, vagina and one eye. "Whoa, this is a mutilation," Griggs determined before he called law enforcement to investigate. Nine years ago, his family had lost a bull the same way. Along with its genitalia, that bull was missing its tongue as well as an eye and an ear. With both the cow and the bull, all of the blood had been removed from the animal and there were no footprints or tire tracks in the vicinity of the dead animal.

Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Blake Fullmer could confirm that the cuts removing the cow’s body parts were not made by another animal, but it has been difficult to find any additional clues in the case to help explain what happened. Between Satanic cults and extraterrestrial activity, Fullmer was not comfortable making a determination.

"It’s hard to throw those terms out there," Fullmer said. "I don’t know a lot about that stuff."

Cattle mutilation is a subject with which Don Griggs, Zach’s father, is very familiar. As a cattleman as well as a former sheriff’s deputy with Madison County for more than 20 years, Don worked on a number of different cases in which animals were mutilated in the exact same manner, with blood drained from the bodies and the same parts removed with a surgeon’s precision.

"It’s a cult thing, has to do with devil worship," Griggs said. "These people are very professional, they’re slick and sophisticated. No one has ever been caught, but that doesn’t mean that it’s UFOs."

Don Griggs explained how animals could be tranquilized or immobilized with electric currents by individuals who perform mutilation. He said that once an animal has been rendered helpless, it is not difficult to insert a needle into the animal’s jugular vein. With the animal still alive at that point, the heart pumps until all of its blood has been drained and the animal expires. After the death of the animal, the body parts are removed.

During the time that he investigated cattle mutilation, Griggs turned to Jay’s Journal, the account of a teenage boy in Pleasant Grove, Utah who was involved in practices of the occult, including cattle mutilation. According to Griggs, the journal details how individuals went about draining blood and removing specific body parts.

"There’s always been a little bit of this going on. A lot of times the mutilated animals go undiscovered," Griggs said. "Most people don’t want to approach a dead animal, men or women. It’s not a fun scene. But the few cattlemen that are left, they look closely when something dies suddenly. Sometimes it may be lightning or wolves, more recently, and once in a while, you have a mutilation. They can tell when that happens."

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