5 men accused of blowing up turtle

Posted at: 09/20/2009 12:05 AM
Updated at: 09/22/2009 2:33 PM
By: Kumi Tucker

KNOX - Five men from the town of Knox are accused of making their own bombs.

Authorities say the men strapped an explosive to a turtle and blew it up, and captured it all on video tape.

You can see the men joking about what they're about to do. They talk about putting the video on YouTube and show the explosives they mean to use to blow up the snapping turtle.

VIDEOTAPE:

"We'll do it. We'll put it on the ground then."
"Because all the force goes up, makes sense."
"I mean, you're not going to blow up the ground."
"We'll put the fuse in his mouth."
They tape the explosive to the turtle and joke about the imminent death.

VIDEOTAPE:

"He's going to be done soon. Think he has any last words?"
"Take that out of his mouth. He might say something."
Authorities say the men who thought this was so much fun are 25-year-old Jeffrey Robert and 22-year-old Michael Robert of 851 Knox Cave Rd. and 26-year-old Tyson Pincher, 21-year-old James Pincher and 17-year-old Seth Pincher of 864 Knox Cave Rd.

Authorities say they executed a search warrant Friday night at the Pincher home.

"We also found chemicals in the house that are illegal for the average person to possess such as chloroform, bottles of chloroform, illegal handguns, sawed-off shotguns, fireworks. It's unbelievable what we pulled out of this house tonight. The scary thing is that these pipe bombs were very well-made and capable of doing a lot of damage," said Albany County Undersheriff Craig Apple.

On the tape, one of the men even puts a line on the turtle's tail.

VIDEOTAPE:

"Don't you want to see him squirming around before he blows up?"
All five are facing charges of felony criminal possession of a weapon, conspiracy and torturing an animal. They were taken to Albany County Jail in lieu of bail.

Investigators are looking into what the men may have been planning with the explosives and weapons.

Officials with the SPCA call this demented and sadistic behavior. Torturing an animal is a misdemeanor, not a felony, and they hope the laws will be strengthened.

"It's very important to document animal cruelty offenses in people under the age of 30, because the FBI has tracked animal cruelty offenders and have shown that every serial killer in the United States in recent history has abused animals when they were younger," said Mathew Tully of the Schenectady County SPCA.

Tully said Buster's Law does not apply in this case because that generally deals with companion animals and this was a wild snapping turtle.