Pet owner horrified to find headless body of beloved missing kitten outside her house

A pet owner was horrified to find the headless body of her missing kitten on the pavement outside her house.

Sales administrator Katie rushed outside to find its decapitated body lying on the pavement with a shaved tail.

Katie Ross, 28, launched a Facebook appeal to find 10-month-old Ru when he failed to return home for breakfast.

Shortly afterwards she received a message from a neighbour who had found the kitten's mutilated body by the side of the road.

Sales administrator Katie rushed outside to find its decapitated body lying on the pavement with a shaved tail.

Katie Ross, 28, launched a Facebook appeal to find 10-month-old Ru when he failed to return home for breakfast.

She said: "I'm on crutches at the moment, so I hobbled out of the house and I could just see his little lifeless body on the pavement, it absolutely broke me.

"I scooped him up and waited for my partner to get home. We took him to the vets, praying it was an animal attack, as it is more digestible than thinking a human could do something so vile.

"The vet told me she'd never seen injuries like that on a cat - the cut where they'd removed his head was so clean and straight, there's no way an animal had done that to him.

"They also noticed Ru's tail had been shaved - apparently cat killers sometimes take part of the tail as some kind of sick trophy.

"It's been absolutely devastating and my heart is just broken over what's happened."

Katie became the proud owner of Maine Coon kitten Ru and his brother Morty back in March 2019 when the kittens were just six-weeks-old.

She'd given the fluffy siblings a comfy life in her house in St Anne's, Bristol, with her partner Oliver James, 31.

Ru and Morty were often in and out of the house, trained from a young age to return home through the cat flap when the couple called their names or shook treats from the front door.

Ru had gone out to play at 3:30pm on November 7 and when he hadn't returned home for dinner by 7pm Katie went out looking for him.

She returned home in vain and alarm bells started ringing when he had not returned when the couple woke at 6am the next day.

Katie posted an appeal on local Facebook groups and it wasn't long before a neighbour messaged to say there was a headless kitten by her house which Katie identified as Ru.

The cat had been killed and decapitated with a sharp instrument or blade and his tail had been shaved.

Katie said: "I just can't believe there's someone out there who would do something like that and it sickens me to know they're just out walking around Bristol like nothing's happened.

"We're not letting Morty outside now, I'm not losing another cat, even though he's been whining at the door to go out and play - he's lost without his brother.

"The police are helping us to try and find out what happened to my beautiful boy, but right now I'm just devastated and don't want this to happen to anyone else."

A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset police said: "We're investigating after the mutilated body of a cat was found in the St Anne's Park area on Friday, November 8.

"The incident is being treated as a criminal offence and our inquiries are continuing."

If anyone has any information about what happened to Ru, they should call the police on 101 and quote reference number: 0165.

Katie has also set up a GoFundMe page to raise money as a reward for anyone who has any information on what happened to Ru.