The necks of more than 20 horses were mysteriously slashed near their jugular veins at Tanque Verde Guest Ranch in Tucson, Ariz., beginning in July, 2003. The attacks launched an investigation, and concern about area horses’ safety erupted. Tuscon law officials recently discovered the culprit wasn’t a criminal, it was a pasturemate of the victims.

Dawn Barkman, public information officer and deputy at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, said, “We didn’t get involved until Aug. 1 of last year, and by that point, they had already had 12 horses that were attacked.” An additional 11 were attacked once the department got involved.

Wounds on the victims were one to four inches long and about an inch deep.

“All the injuries were on the same side of the neck of the horse, the same type of injury, which led us to believe it might have been caused by a human,” said Barker. “At the end of the investigation, we actually discovered it was a horse doing all the damage.” Deputies had been watching the horses at night during the investigation. Witnesses at the ranch saw the offending horse exhibiting aggressive behavior so the deputies began watching the one horse and determined a few months ago that he was, in fact, the culprit