RICHMOND, Maine — The owner of two Holstein cattle that were shot dead on her property said Sunday that she thinks she may know who is responsible for the killing, which she said is considered by police to have been a deliberate act.
Daria Goggins of Richmond said the siblings, a male named Theodore and a female named Isadora, were shot dead Friday afternoon. She had owned them as pets for about 10 years but just recently had moved to her property off Langdon Road. The Holsteins were relocated from Pownal to Richmond in early June and Goggins, who had a modular home installed on the property this past summer, had only been living there a few weeks.
Goggins did not mention any possible culprit by name, but on Sunday said she thinks she may know who shot her cows and has provided that information to the police. She believes the perpetrator or perpetrators may have lured the animals out of their 4-acre fenced pasture toward a stone wall that marks her property line to try to make the killing look like a hunting accident.
“It was not an accident,” Goggins said. “[Theodore] was huge. He was white with black spots.”
She added she had heavily posted her property with “no hunting” signs before deer season started.
According to a report by the Kennebec Journal, Richmond police confirmed on Saturday that each cow suffered one fatal wound and that the shooting appears to have been a deliberate act.
Attempts on Sunday to contact officials with Richmond Police Department and Maine Warden Service, which reportedly is assisting in the investigation, were unsuccessful.
Goggins, whose home is about 600 feet from the pasture, said she found their bodies around 3:30 p.m. Friday. She and her brother were driving away from the house and, as she often does, they stopped by the pasture to throw some hay over the fence.
Usually, the cows see her and come running up to enjoy the snack, she said, but this time, they did not. With growing concern, she and her brother walked through a gate into the pasture.
A gate in the back part of the fence, which usually stays shut, was open.
“Theodore was dead, stiff,” Goggins said. “Then I saw Isadore was dead, too.”
Each had one visible wound, she added.
Many residents liked the cows, she said, and some would come down her road just to the pasture to see them.
“A lot of people knew these cows,” she said.
