Resident claims cats poisoned; animal control says it's tough to prove

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla - West Palm Beach resident Anthony Munoz has made it his mission to get to the bottom of what he calls the intentional poisoning of four cats in his downtown historic neighborhood.

"There was rat poisoning with cat food in it," Munoz said.

Munoz pointed out bowls as evidence and he says they were intentionally left out and filled with cat food mixed with rat poison.

"We found three cats starting to die, they were real sick," Munoz said.

Within the past few weeks, Munoz says a total of four stray cats have died.

"There was also an orange tabby killed," he said.

Now, Palm Beach County Animal Control is involved. The bowls are being looked at. The cat corpses have been taken to veternarians.

"There are people out there that poison cats," said Animal Control Operations Manager David Walesky.

Walesky says these kinds of cases are nearly impossible to prove.

"We do everything we can to catch people when they do things like that, because they do tend to be very secretive when they know it's against the law," he said.

A conviction could lead to a 10 thousand dollar fine and five years in prison.

Munoz is now taking in any stray cats he can catch to protect them.

His house is full of feral cats; he'll soon be taking them to area shelters.

"What kind of person does that, what else is he doing?" Munoz said.