Two people were arrested in Hollister on Feb. 6 after they allegedly broke into Hollister High School’s livestock section and slaughtered a pig and a goat.
The pair then loaded the pig’s carcass into a school wheelbarrow and left, the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office stated in a press release.
The animals were being raised by students in the school’s FFA program for the Salinas Valley Fair.
Campus security cameras show the incident occurred around 11:30pm on Feb. 5.
San Benito High School District spokesman Adam Breen said the suspects were arrested for burglary, two counts of animal cruelty, conspiracy and grand theft.
On Tuesday morning, students and staff arriving at the ag barn discovered that one of the five goats at the school’s Future Farmers of America program and one of the five pigs being housed there was missing. Review of campus security cameras showed a suspect wth an ax break a lock on the barn, enter the animal enclosure and leave about 12 minutes later with the pig carcass. The goat carcass was not taken, Breen said.
The Sheriff’s Department added that the high school’s “substantial security measures” showed that the suspects had fled south of the high school campus toward the San Benito riverbed.
Investigators searched the area, and found the stolen wheelbarrow, as well as the pig hanging from a tree in a homeless encampment.
They also found a man who fit the suspect description, and learned he was on probation
Investigators also found unexpended ammunition and drugs, both of which the suspect was not alllowed to have underm the terms of his probation.
Two suspects were booked into the San Benito County Jail.
