The State - News from July 6, 1989

A Humane Society official in San Rafael said staff members at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville are suspected in the mutilation deaths of seven kittens adopted as pets by prison inmates. Pat Miller, director of operations for the society’s Marin County branch, said the cats were killed in the prison’s workshop after 3 p.m.--the end of the shift. Only prison staff members would be in the area after the workshop closed, Miller said. Five cats were killed on April 21, one on May 12 and a seventh on May 17, she said. A prison spokesman said an “intensive investigation” was under way into the “acts of brutality.” He added that about 120 inmates and staff members have been interviewed but so far officials have not come up with any “suspect information.”