The owners of the Pocket Pleaser grocery store are in shock after pets were intentionally burned to death. Photo: Tim Clarke/Tribune Staff

A DISTRAUGHT store manager yesterday bemoaned the senseless killing of nine caged dogs kept at her family’s premises, who she said were all set on fire and “burnt to a crisp” by two unknown men for “no apparent reason”.

Kenmara Lightbourn, manager for Pocket Pleaser grocery store, tearfully described how, on Sunday morning, two unknown men allegedly “took it upon themselves” to throw “gas and fire” on the caged dogs - a male and female pit bull and their seven puppies - kept on the West Street south premises.

She said the puppies were only one month old and that when she finally mustered the strength to move the cage with the charred dogs inside, their corpses “fell to ashes”.

Representatives from the Bahamas Humane Society (BHS) as well as officials from the research group, The Family, also chastised the culprits, suggesting that they may have the propensity to commit such acts against humans.

According to Ms. Lightbourn, at around 4am on Sunday, two unknown males approached the rear of the store’s heavily barbed-wired wall and via unknown means, managed to set fire to the dogs and their cage, burning them alive.

Ms. Lightbourn said when she arrived at the store, the firefighters were leaving. She said she did not notice any police on the scene, leading her to believe that they “don’t find it important to come report on dogs”.

When The Tribune went to the scene yesterday, the wall where the cage was located was heavily burnt from top to bottom.

“It’s sad to know that people would go to the extreme to burn dogs,” Ms. Lightbourn said tearfully. “You know dogs are people’s best friend. So they took their anger out on dogs and seven puppies. Why burn dogs? And they were burnt to a crisp. And to know life was there, and to come back and see something like that, it hurts. Life is something precious. You don’t waste life like that.”

Percy Grant, shelter manager at the BHS, said he was “really horrified” when he was contacted.

“I’ve been working at the Humane Society for almost 30 years and in a week I deal with a lot of graphic instances,” he said. “This is probably the worst. But my fear was that you’ve got some lunatic, somebody who needs some psychiatric help, because who knows, they could do this to some human being.”

Mr. Grant also referred to a situation the Humane Society experienced in the 1990s when it was notified that young men were collecting puppies and throwing them in a bonfire.

“Now we heard of that case about a week, two weeks later, but I fear to wonder are these the same young men who did this in the early 90s and are they now grown up? Maybe not. But we’ve had a lot of horrific instances.”

Marie Allen Carroll, daughter of Bahamian psychiatrist Dr. David Allen, said there is a direct correlation between the abuse and/or senseless slaughtering of animals and violence against human beings.

“This is dangerous because it means there are some very life-threatening people on the streets that have a lack of empathy, maybe addiction, mental health issues,” she said. “And so it’s really important that the Bahamas starts realising that just because it’s an animal and not a human, we still need to take it very, very seriously.”

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

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