Authorities seek information about horse shooting

Updated at 6:11 p.m.

The Carteret County owner of a $30,000 retired pregnant racehorse found shot in the head Monday said she thinks the slaying was personal.

Carteret County Sheriff’s detectives and animal control officials were back at the scene outside Beaufort on Tuesday investigating the horse’s death. Detectives found tracks on the ground that they say might indicate someone chased the horse before shooting it.

The animal’s owner, Elizabeth Loftin, said she found her horse, Breeze, dead when she went to feed it Monday morning. Loftin kept the animal at her house on Taylor Farm Road.

The horse died of a single gunshot wound to the head, said Carteret County Sheriff’s Capt. Jason Wank, adding that detectives do not believe that the shooting was random.

“Detectives believe that this incident does suggest that Breeze was in fact specifically targeted and the shot was calculated with the specific intent to kill her,” he said.

Loftin agrees.

“They shot her right between the eyes; this was something personal,” she said. “Anyone who could do this to an animal could do it to a person.”

According to North Carolina statute maliciously killing an animal is a Class I felony punishable by up to 15 months in prison.

Wank said detectives did not have any suspects in the “senseless shooting.”

Anyone with information in this case is eligible for a cash reward by either calling Carteret Crime Stoppers at 252-726-INFO or e-mailing CRIMETIPS@carteretcountygov.org. Callers do not have to reveal their identities.

Contact Lindell Kay at 910-219-8456. Read his blog here.

Carteret authorities are seeking information about a pregnant retired race horse that has been shot.

Elizabeth Loftin reported that her horse, Breeze, was shot in the head either Sunday or Monday at the end of Farm Road outside of Beaufort, according to the Carteret County Sheriff’s Department.

Breeze, who was valued at $30,000, appears to have died from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to a press release from the department.

Detectives do not believe that the incident was random.

Anyone with information is eligible cash reward by calling Crime Stoppers at 252-726-INFO or by e-mailing CRIMETIPS@carteretcountygov.org.