Pig-slaughtering case solved by local officials LISA CARNLEY Staff Writer

Lampasas County Sheriff's Department officials have made two arrests in a Nov. 26 case where a pair of pigs were found dead at the Burke Brown place on FM 580 East.

Curtis Byron Crumley, 21, of Evant and Derek Andrew Cox, 18, of Lampasas were arrested Dec. 14 after an interview with officials who issued warrants for their arrest. Both confessed to trespassing on the property and killing the hogs.

The case was investigated jointly by the sheriff department's Criminal Investigation Division and Texas Parks & Wildlife Department Game Warden Jim Lindeman.

David and Kim Fisher, son-inlaw and daughter of Brown, owned the Hampshire pigs, which Fisher believes were killed the night before the discovery.

The couple's son, Michael, and his mother made the gruesome discovery after the sows failed to show up for feeding.

Michael and his sister, Maegan, fed the two breeding sows Nov. 24, and when they left, the animals were in a pasture along with a third pig.

"Usually, when we go to feed them, the pigs come up to the fence knowing they are going to be fed," said David Fisher. "Two of the three did not come, but the weather was cold and wet, and we figured they were just hunkered down under a tree somewhere."

On Nov. 26, Mrs. Fisher and her son found the 16-month-old sows. One was completely gutted, and the other had been killed but left where it laid.

Fisher theorized the killings were the work of poachers. Lampasas County Sheriff's officials went to the site to take a report, but it was too dark to see anything that night, Fisher said, adding that he did take photos, and no footprints were left at the scene.

Deputy Bill Logsdon returned the morning of Nov. 27, and he and Fisher walked the property and were able to track the direction the perpetrators took after they scaled the fences. But the trail panned out quickly, Fisher said.

He concluded the hog killings to be the work of several sizable people. "They had to cross two fences just to get to the pigs. First, they had to climb one fence, and that's probably the pasture they shot the pigs from," he said. "Then they had to cross a second fence and haul more than 400 pounds of meat out of there after they killed it. It would take some really strong folks to do that."

The Lampasas man also believes he and his son scared the poachers off that Sunday night before the hogs' discovery, which could be the reason one pig was left behind. "Or, it could be that they just didn't realize how heavy one pig would be when they carried it out of there and had to lift it over two good, barbed-wire fences," Fisher said.

The worst part, he said, is the waste of the animals. "These poachers were on land they were not supposed to be on. They killed an animal and just left it there, and they gutted the other."

Both sows were exhibited at the 2007 Lampasas County Youth Livestock Show and then were kept for breeding purposes. They were part of a school FFA project Fisher's son, Michael, was working on.

Fisher said a third pig was moved from the pasture after the incident.

Even with the arrests, Fisher said he questions why the incident happened. Sheriff's officials said Crumley and Cox initially entered Brown's property to hunt deer but shot the hogs instead when they failed to locate any deer.

Both have been charged with theft of livestock, a state jail felony, and criminal trespass, a Class B misdemeanor. They were booked into the Lampasas County Jail and released after they posted bond.

The investigation revealed the killings were an isolated incident and were not related to the destruction of livestock that occurred recently at the Mike Hail place in Lampasas County. Hail lost several pigs to poisoning.

Fisher said though the offenses are unrelated, the killings on the family's land "were senseless and stupid."

"My kids worked hard to raise those hogs. It seems nowadays you can't have anything. But we're not going to let this stop us from doing what we want to do. We will just have to be more careful from now on."

Fisher said he is thankful his children did not walk up on the poachers when they were doing their work.

The pigs are valued at about $1,600 each, but Fisher said it is not the money that is his major concern. "I am worried about people who don't think it's wrong to climb over fences and just take what they want. It is a waste what they did."