Woman wants to know who shot her horse

Elaine Doyle is hoping someone will come forward with information about the shooting of her horse Misty on Thanksgiving Day. She wants to know what happened to her beloved purebred Morgan mare, which had to be put down due to its injuries.

She was alerted to the problem by a friend who came in Thanksgiving morning and told her “one of the horses has a cut leg.” Doyle found the 12-year-old chestnut/bay mare standing against the fence near her home off Highway 181 in Gainesville with her back right leg nearly severed at the hock.

“Basically, the hock was totally blown away. The rest of the leg was still connected, but just barely,” she said. It was obvious the injury was something the mare couldn’t recover from. So the horse was put down.

Later, Doyle reported the incident to the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, which asks anyone who might have heard or seen anything related to the incident early Thanksgiving morning to call the office at 679-4633.

Deputy Cassidy Martin, who is investigating the case, said deputies “don’t have much to go on" because Doyle didn’t hear or see anything. "But maybe someone out there did,” he said.

He suspects the incident was hunting-related. “But it happened on Thanksgiving Day, when deer season was over, so if that was the case, someone was hunting out of season,” he said.

Other possible charges, should someone be arrested, might include discharging a firearm inside the city limits or animal abuse, either a misdemeanor or a class D felony, Martin said.

“Misty was one of the best trail horses I’ve had in a long time,” said Doyle, who also owns four other horses. “I couldn’t put a money value on her.”