A Northwest Miami-Dade family said they're heartbroken after their 7-year-old horse Destiny was found mutilated on their property.
Raquel Torres' family made the grotesque discovery Tuesday in the area of Northwest 137th Avenue and 182nd Street.
Torres said Destiny was found lying on the grass where she'd normally graze and gallop.
Horse Found Slaughtered in Southwest Miami-Dade
"She had been carved up like if she was hamburger, chopped meat," Torres said. "Mutilated, I say in cold blood because her eyes were open."
Torres said the horse killer butchered 75 percent of her body in the dark of the night.
"It's barbaric what people have done, they don't have no heart, no sense, they understand this is not an animal, this is a family member," Torres said. "We give it a bath, you feed it everyday, we ride."
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The family's heartbreak is as deep as its anger. Torres believes the culprit made his way onto the property through pathways in the shrubs. Perhaps what's most disturbing is her meat was cut and her body parts hacked at the limbs just feet away from her colt.
"That colt saw everything they were doing to it's mother," Torres said.
Destiny's stall was empty Wednesday, but what is alive and well is the number of illegal horse slaughters in Northwest Miami-Dade. Animal rights activists believe horse meat sells at increasingly high prices on the black market.
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"People don't understand, they think that by eating horse meat it's gonna be good for leukemia, it's gonna be good for people with muscles and things like that," they don't understand that whether you cook the meat or not, there's bacteria that does not die."
The family said Miami-Dade Police are investigating the incident.
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Photo Credit: NBC6.com