Belcross Farms Investigation

What the Investigator Saw

After this pig’s throat was slit with an inadequate scalpel blade, she remained completely conscious, choking on her own blood and attempting to lift her head for five minutes.

November 9, 1998: All male pigs except for HDs (a breed) are castrated. Kelly demonstrated castration by holding a male pig upside down by his legs and making two incisions in the scrotum with a scalpel. He then used his fingers to pull each testicle out. During these procedures, the pigs were screaming and writhing. When placed back with their mothers, the pigs continued to cry and shake. Kelly then gave everyone a pig and we were told to try to process them. I saw the piglet Elyse had been processing lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood. They told me that, when Elyse was attempting to castrate her piglet and pulled out the first testicle, the internal wall ruptured and the pig’s intestines began spilling out. Kelly grabbed the pig and smashed his head on the concrete floor, killing him.

November 11, 1998: Kelly was standing to the left of the sow with a crowbar. He swung the bar once and hit the sow on the forehead with the blunt end; her legs stiffened and she shrieked. Kelly hit her again in the same spot and again the sow screamed but remained standing. Kelly gave Robert the crowbar and asked him to give it a try. Robert turned the crowbar over and hit the sow on the forehead with the hooked end, causing a gash. He hit her again and pierced her skull with the bar. The sow collapsed and began to thrash. He wrenched the bar out of the gash, and Kelly yelled, "That’s the money shot."

December 10, 1998: I finished my daily duties shortly after lunch and went to the breeding barn to see what was happening. I had been hearing continuous screaming coming from the barn for approximately 10 minutes. As I got closer, I could see that they were trying to move a sow who had collapsed and was wedged in the narrow space. Ray began stomping on the sow’s side and kicking her in the face. Robert's beating escalated in intensity as he became more frustrated. He gave up and Ray got on top of the sow and pretended to tap dance. Robert began beating the sow again, raising the cane over his head and hitting her as hard as he could. After five minutes of continuous beating, he gave up and we began to push and pull the sow along the walkway and around a corner leading out of the barn.

Once outside, Ray said, "Ain’t gonna run away now, bitch." The sow was lying on the concrete ramp breathing hard, foam dribbling from her mouth. Ray stood on top of her again and began dancing, then he got down and apologized to her. Purple welts were beginning to stand out on her back, many resembling the outline of a curved cane handle.

Later, I walked out to the sow and saw that Robert had slit the sow’s throat with a scalpel blade. Robert’s hands were covered in blood and he was holding a red metal pipe. The sow was still fully conscious and was looking around and lifting her head off the ground. As she breathed, I could hear blood gurgling in her throat. I looked into the wound and could see that the large vein was not severed, that her throat was not properly slit. After about five minutes, he decided to bolt her with the captive-bolt gun. He loaded it, placed it against her forehead and fired it. She convulsed and Robert started laughing.

December 29, 1998: Since December 18, I have been giving water to a sow with a prolapsed rectum. She is unable to stand to reach her feed or her waterspout. She’s lying on her side and has turned a dark red from an intense fever. Each day, I unscrew the plastic light cover from over her crate and fill it with water so that she can drink. I pour the water over her lips and she raises her head and opens her mouth. I keep refilling the container and pouring the water into her throat. She seems frantic to drink the water at first but doesn’t have the energy to keep her head up for long. She doesn’t really get much water from this, since most spills onto the floor. To qualify for the cull truck, she must be able to stand and walk, and Russ has said, "The bitch is going to stand for the cull truck."

January 7, 1999: Elyse told me that Russ came to the boar stud facility a couple of days ago to kill two boars that were no longer useful. I had seen them both when I worked at the boar stud facility; one had a broken hip and the other had had a stroke, incapacitating him. Sonja, who ran the facility up until January 1, 1999, had asked Dr. Cunningham to do something to help the boars, but he had done nothing except look at them. Elyse said that one day he had come by with a barbiturate and could have euthanized them but did not. The young boar with the broken hip, Jekyll, was dragged outside by Russ, Kelly, and Chris and loaded onto Russ’ truck and then killed with a bolt gun. MJ was an old boar who had had a stroke and had been lying down on the concrete floor in his pen for so long that his skin was stuck to it and he was unable to stand to reach his food or water. Russ, Kelly, and Chris pulled MJ off the floor, ripping all the skin from his side. Elyse said that he was screaming the entire time and that his pen was covered in blood. They then loaded him onto the truck and killed him.

January 12, 1999: One sow, who was lame, was unable to walk all the way down the hallway back to the breeding barn. I left her there and went and told Kelly. When I returned, she had lain down, tired from walking on three legs. Russ came and began kicking her to get her to walk back toward a door leading outside. He kicked her as she limped along to where Kelly was standing. After she passed through the door, Russ wondered if she would go wander away. Kelly said, "Not if we break her other shoulder" and joked that, if he jumped from the doorway, he might be able to break her back.

Later, I found them trying to get the sow to walk over to the incinerator approximately 60 feet from the door. Kelly had a long iron pick and Russ had a wooden-handled shovel. When I approached, I saw Kelly hit the sow on the forehead with the sharp end of the pick. He said that he had better not do that again, in case the pick got stuck in her skull. He hit her again on the snout with the flat side of the metal pick. The sow turned back toward the building and away from the burner, so Russ raised the shovel over his head and hit her in the face with the flat metal end. The sow turned back around and Russ began shoving the shovel into her side. He then kicked her hard in the ribs and she began limping toward the open burner. The burner was turned on and flames were visible to the sow.

Kelly said that he would "knock her" with the iron bar if Russ wanted him to. He said that he hoped she wouldn’t turn out like a sow that he and Robert had tried to kill in the summer. They had beat that sow for an hour with the iron bar but could not kill her. They gave up and put the sow into the burner while she was still alive. Russ joked that maybe we could get her to jump into the burner and save us the trouble of having to kill her. He then went and got an iron bar that was propped up beside the burner and leaned back to hit her, startling the sow and causing her to move away to the left side of the burner. Russ followed her and, as soon as she stopped, he hit her on the forehead. The sow fell over and Russ hit her three more times. She was still moving while he was hitting her.

January 13, 1999: After putting two sows into a crate designed for one, Ray said, "Do you want to see me stick this [wooden cane] in her pussy?" I turned and saw him pushing the cane into one of the sows’ vaginas. He inserted the cane about three inches, then withdrew it when the sow tried to sit down and cover her backside. Ray tried again while she was sitting down but could not penetrate her. He began ramming the end of the cane into her back to get her to stand. He tried to insert the cane again but after trying to push it into her vagina three times he gave up. He then said that "yesterday [Kevin] put a cane about that far up Buddy’s ass. … Buddy’s ass is swollen, ain’t it?" Ray then started ramming the end of the cane into the sow’s back, starting lightly, then hitting her as hard as he could, yelling, "Fight, motherfucker, fight. Who’s gonna get out first?"

January 16, 1999: Kelly said that we had to kill a lame sow today and we might as well use the meat for our own benefit so that it wouldn’t go to waste. Ray was very excited at the prospect of killing a sow and being able to take home the meat (apparently, he and Kelly had already planned this). Kelly said that he does this all the time and that his freezer was almost full, so he just wanted the tenderloin.

Ray attached the snare to the sow’s left front leg and began pulling. The sow was screaming but had little energy to try and escape. Ray pulled her onto the grass so we wouldn’t get any blood on the concrete. Kelly quickly got the orange metal pipe wrench and hit the sow on the top of her head twice. The sow completely collapsed after the second hit but kept her head raised and was moving it around. Kelly hit her some more on the head and then left and got the scalpel. He put a foot on her to try and get her to be still, but she was trying to stand up. Ray got the pipe wrench and hit her two more times.

The sow was still moving while he was trying to cut her throat, so Ray got the snare and tried to hold her still. He couldn’t, but Kelly managed to cut her throat by making a series of cuts, each a little deeper, since the small scalpel blade quickly dulled. He kept cutting and trying to make the slit deeper and wider, but it was difficult since the sow was still moving. She was opening her mouth, trying to breathe and trying to lift her head. Kelly would look at her face to see if she was dead yet and keep cutting. After the blade got too dull, he left the sow and changed blades. Ray joked that the sow was looking at him and making him feel guilty. Kelly returned and began cutting again. The sow was making low groaning noises and I could hear her breath gurgling in her throat.

Kelly began sawing the back left leg off at the "knee" and, while he did this, the sow sucked breaths of air and moved her front legs. After her leg was sawn off, Kelly said, "Give up, bitch, already, Goddamit. This is getting sad." He then began to saw off her left front leg.