For immediate release

June 18, 2001

Bail hearing for serial animal killers

Monday June 18, 2001 - 10 a.m. - Old City Hall, Room 101

Toronto - In one of the most heinous cases of animal torture in Canadian history, 2 men, Jessie Powers, aged 21, and Anthony Wenneker, aged 24, from the Queen/Bathurst and Kensington Market area, are awaiting their bail hearing this morning. They will likely be released back into the community given Canada's outdated animal cruelty laws.

Police seized 70 videotapes depicting hundreds of hours of gruesome acts of cruelty towards animals including a cat and an orangutan (an endanged species) being skinned alive. Police found a headless, skinned cat in the fridge of the home of these two men, several other animal skeletons, and a number of live animals (a dog and some mice and rats who are now in the care of the Toronto Humane Society). The images on the tapes involve companion animals, exotic animals, and farm animals.

A project of Freedom for Animals is the Kensington Market Stray Cat Rescue. In Nov. 2000, a member of Freedom for Animals started receiving threats at her home relating to cats that were very graphic such as cutting cats open. When we received these threats we were afraid something like this would happen. We believe this case may be related to the threats we received. (Please contact us for further information.)

We don't want another animal victim.

Freedom for Animals is working with community members on the Queen and Kensington Animal Cruelty Case Hotline (416-593-9542 [now 416-591-5120]) in a community watch, gathering and sharing information about this case, and postering the area with information everyone should know.

"The cat that was photographed in one of the videos we named Kensington. We don't want her and all the other victims to have suffered and died in vain, that their life was meaningless. If our animal cruelty laws don't get tougher, these men are going to know that they can continue doing what they have done," said Suzanne Lahaie of Freedom for Animals.