The news of Buddy’s killing sparked fears in the community that the two incidents could be linked, however, the Latah County Sheriff’s Office does not believe so at that this time.
A local pet dog was found “skinned” and killed just weeks before the murders of four University of Idaho students, sparking fears in the community that the incidents could be linked, according to reports.
Buddy, a 12-year-old mini Australian shepherd that belonged to Pam and Jim Colbert, was skinned and left with just fur on his legs and face when he was killed after they let him out of their Moscow home on Oct. 21, the New York Post reported.
Buddy was found just three miles and three weeks from the off-campus home where the four students were found dead, the New York Post reported.
“It was like a deer that someone had hunted,” Pam Colbert, 78, told the Daily Mail. “They cut him around the neck and just skinned him. His little legs had fur and his little face had fur, but the rest of him was just skinned.”
She also described the dog as being “cut like you filet a fish. We found his collar, but we didn’t find the pelt,” in her interview with the Daily Mail.
“The other side of him was as though they had filleted him like they were about to eat him. It was terrible, unbelievable,” she added.
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to Pam Colbert for comment and has not heard back.
The news of Buddy’s killing sparked fears in the community that the two incidents could be linked, however, the Latah County Sheriff’s Office does not believe so at that this time.
A spokesperson for the Latah County Sheriff's Office tells Inside Edition Digital in an email, “We have nothing to indicate these two cases are connected in anyway. We have passed all the relevant information from this case to the Moscow Police Department. We do think the dog was killed by a human.”
Last week, the Moscow Police Department said that they responded to a call Sunday Nov. 13, just before noon of an unconscious person and upon arrival they found four dead individuals.
Because the authorities suspected the scene to be homicides, CBS News reports that it “generally means the killing of one person by another, though the term doesn't necessarily suggest death was intended or committed in a criminal manner.”
Moscow Police Department released the names of the victims as Ethan Chapin, 20, Conway, WA; Madison Mogen, 21, Coeur d’Alene, ID; Xana Kernodle, 20, Avondale, AZ ; and Kaylee GonCalves, 21, Rathdrum, ID, and confirmed that all four were students at the University of Idaho.
In a press conference this past Sunday, police said they still have not identified any suspects or persons of interest in the slayings of the Idaho students, Fox News reported.
Cops have ruled out the surviving roommates, the man whom two of the victims called before the murders and the driver who drove two of the students home before they were slain, Fox News reported.
