Florida horse stolen and slaughtered for its meat, sheriff's office says

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Authorities in Florida investigating a stolen horse made a gruesome discovery on Monday when they learned the animal had been slaughtered for its meat.

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release a woman reported her horse was stolen from a home on the 5800-block of Buckeye Road in Palmetto, Fla. between 5 p.m. on Sunday and 8 a.m. on Monday.

Officials said that in that time period, burglars forced entry through a locked gate onto the woman's property and stole the horse.

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"Deputies and the victim searched the surrounding area and later located the horse deceased in a nearby field," the sheriff's office said. "The horse had been slaughtered for the meat."

Authorities in Florida discovered the slaughtered remains of a horse in a field on Monday. (iNews)

No suspects have been identified, and additional details were not released by the sheriff's office.

The incident in Palmetto came less than a week after another house was found butchered in Ocala, about 130 miles away. In that incident, Tammy Davis told FOX13 her 21-year-old horse was attacked and killed on Thanksgiving.

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“This was not an animal. There were no claw marks. These were nice, clean, cuts,” she told FOX13 at the time. “They cut the meat from both sides of the body. It wasn’t just one side like it got attacked by a predator.”

It's not clear if the two incidents are related. Authorities in Marion County were investigating the mangled horse in Ocala.

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Anyone with information on the slaughtered horse in Palmetto is asked to contact the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office at (941) 747-3011 or Crime Stoppers at (866) 634-TIPS.