Pet tortoise stolen and tortured

Thursday, 12 July 2007

There is a $1,000 reward offered by Ventura police Tuesday for information leading to the arrest of the person who mutilated a family's pet tortoise. Bob, a 40-pound desert tortoise, was stolen Saturday from Bill and Dorothy Sullivan's front yard in Ventura. Bob was more than a household pet to the Sullivans, as he a friend to the couple's 6-year-old son William who is autistic. Until a couple years ago, William didn't speak to humans, communicating instead through sign language. Found  later behind an apartment complex, with a head wound, multiple cuts to head, throat, limbs and shell, police Lt. Ray Vance said. “Someone used an ice pick type of knife to stab through the shell,” Vance said. But with Bob, the little blond boy, who also has the rare neuron-genetic disorder Angelman syndrome, was a regular chatterbox. The approachable reptile opened an inexplicable window into William's inner world, and the boy would bare details of his days at school and of private life, his mother said. "William was devastated and physically sick when he saw what happened to Bob," his mother said. "We call him a therapy turtle because he miraculously brings William out of his shell," Dorothy Sullivan said. The couple is facing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in veterinarian bills for this endangered reptile.

 

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