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American Falls, Idaho • A person is suspected of stabbing a free-roaming pregnant horse to death in eastern Idaho hours before she was going to be adopted.
Rancher Kimberly Clark found her 5- or 6-year-old mustang Dee stabbed to death Sunday in a fenced-in field at her ranch in American Falls, KIDK-TV reported (http://bit.ly/2bx1BIo ) on Tuesday.
Dee was expected to give birth next month.
The horse's nasal cavity was shattered and she also suffered a wound to her side, a veterinarian concluded. While the side wound could have been caused by a branch, the veterinarian said he believed someone caused the nose wound.
Deputies with the Power County Sheriff's Office are not ruling anything out and have said they won't have a finalized death report for a month, Clark said.
She runs "A Little Piece of Heaven" ranch, a temporary home for rescued horses to save them from being sent to slaughter by finding them adoptive homes.
Dee had been adopted and was only hours away from heading to her new home when she died, said Erin McGuire, Clark's daughter.
"She was a sweetheart," McGuire said. "She made us all laugh. She was like a dog, she was one of the sweetest mustangs we've had here so far. She would go up to the irrigation pipes and bite at the water like a dog."
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Information from: KIDK-TV, http://www.kidk.com/