The most beastly butcher this side of Buffalo Bill is the subject of a police investigation in Oxfordshire, UK after brutally silencing lambs at a nature reserve.
A Thames Valley Police spokesman on Tuesday announced that local cops are on the hunt for a "professional butcher" who killed five sheep at the Aston Rowant Natrional Nature Preserve in Watlington, a scenic village south of Thame.
Unlike the central villain of Thomas Harris' 1988 potboiler and Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar-winner "The Silence of the Lambs," the mystery murderer on this sheep slaughtering spree probably doesn't have a twisted M.O. Police suspect that the sheep are being targeted by culinary criminals with a taste for prime cuts.
"The job was professionally done and I believe the offenders may have previous experience of butchering animals and used professional butcher or chef knives," Pc. Jon Simpkins of the Thames police station said.
According to The Telegraph's original report, the perpetrators left behind skins, feet, and internal organs. (One wonders if sheep liver complements fava beans and a nice chianti).
Alistair Helliwell, one of the managers of the 400-acre nature reserve in the Chiltern Hills, told The Telegraph that crimes of this nature are rare.
"[The reserve] is a wonderful place to come and it's upsetting that a small part of the population wants to come and commit crime, particularly one this nasty."
