UPDATE: West Amana Family Horrified Over Horse Abuse

By Justin Foss, Reporter

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By Daren Sukhram

Story Created: Sep 2, 2009 at 5:26 PM CST

Story Updated: Sep 3, 2009 at 2:01 PM CST

WEST AMANA - A horse owner says he's afraid of what could happen next to his horses. Shawn Seehusen says someone's killed one horse, and tried to poison the other on his pasture in West Amana.

The family says this all started with what they think was a simple misunderstanding. But, that misunderstanding quickly turned tragic.

The owners say the trouble started when a neighbor threw some tomatoes and vines from a garden into the pasture.

"Well, we tried to keep our horses safe, that's all we did," said Amanda Seehusen.

The Seehusen family says tomatoes are poisonous to horses, and figured whoever dumped the garden trash didn't know it.

So, they put up signs.

Then, last week when they corralled their five horses, only four showed up.

They went looking, and found one horse had been killed. "His throat had been cut, his throat, his wind pipe - about half-way through," said Shawn.

Shawn knew a knife did that. "It just seemed all wrong, but I didn't want to think it was something other than an accident."

He was ready to leave it as an accident, until what happened next. A few days later they found the horses corralled, with graffiti on them, and rat poison on the ground.

They have an idea of who did this, but they're not sure.

"Until the police can come up with something, I just have to sit and keep my horses hid," Shawn said.

Thursday, the Iowa County Sheriff commented on the allegations.

"My Office is investigating a case of possible horse abuse by an unknown person or persons. This Office does have a Deputy trained in the investigation of horse abuse who is currently working the case. Any information I would release beyond what I've said here would jeopardize our investigation," said Iowa County Sheriff Robert Rotter.

We first heard about this story from a Newsline 9 caller. Remember when you see news, call Newsline 9 at 319-365-9999.

Or send an email to newsroom@kcrg.com.

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