More Horse Bodies In Kentucky Horse Shooting Found; Horses Were Hunted, Authorities Say

Six more bodies of horses were found near an eastern Kentucky strip mine after being fatally shot in an incident on Dec. 18.

The bodies were reportedly among those 15 other horse corpses found near the strip job in Pike and Floyd County along U.S. 23 on Monday, increasing the count to 21.

It is still unclear when the six additional bodies were found.

Tonya Conn of the animal rescue group Dumas Rescue, it seemed like the horses were hunted.

“These horses were scattered in various, various places, distances from each other so they had been shot, and they'd scattered then hunted and shot down," Conn told WYMT.

According to CNN, a resident living near the strip job reported the discovery of his missing horses’ corpses after they had broken free from a fenced area and suspected that his animals had been killed in cold blood.

The Floyd County sheriff’s office found at least 14 dead horse bodies that have been seemingly shot with a low calibre rifle, among them were two young colts and four pregnant mares.

Some of the horses were part of a wild herd while some were owned by the residents.

"This is very inhumane and it's a very cruel act of somebody who just apparently had nothing else to do or whatever just to go back on a strip job and shoot down horses who were, one of them obviously was feeding, had grass in its mouth," Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt said. "It looked like a battlefield for just horses, we counted 15 that we found dead."

The suspect would be facing animal cruelty charges at the minimum. An estimated amount of $2000 is being offered for information on the shooting.