Bellevue Horse's Death Ruled Accidental

BELLEVUE

VETERINARY EXPERTS and police conclude that the pregnant mare Baby Face's own weight forced the stake to sever the artery.

Bellevue police detectives concluded yesterday that the death of a pregnant Arabian mare in Bridle Trails was an accident.

Baby Face, whose highly publicized death brought in about $28,000 in reward donations, most likely kicked up a stake and impaled herself, said police spokesman Mike Johnson.

This was the unanimous opinion, he said, of several local veterinarians and veterinary teams at the University of California at Davis and Washington State University.

"It is highly unlikely that a human being could generate enough force at that angle to injure the horse as it was injured," Johnson said. "It's more likely that the animal's own weight caused the damage."

Johnson said investigators questioned people who had been at two neighborhood parties the night Baby Face bled to death.

They lifted fingerprints from a corral gate and sent to the crime lab the 4-foot stake that lanced the horse's belly, severing an artery. But there was no evidence that someone killed the horse.

A question left unanswered was why the stake was found on a rock pile several yards from the fallen animal.

"Somebody may have put the stake on the rock pile," Johnson said, "but we're comfortable saying that no one did this to the horse. . . .

"This accident is unfortunate, but we're comfortable telling

people that they are safe."

The mare, within a month of foaling, was found in her pasture at 8:30 a.m. May 3.

A trail of blood led to a stable 100 yards away. Blood was splattered on a stable wall.

John Roche, owner of the 8-year-old mare, was not satisfied with the investigation's findings, saying there were too many things left unresolved.

He questioned why the stake was on a rock pile. It's not likely that his pregnant mare would have tread on the 2- to 3-foot-high rock pile, he contended, and there was no blood leading from the rock pile to the corral and stable.

While remaining unconvinced that Baby Face's death was an accident, Roche tempered earlier comments alleging that the incident was somehow connected to a property dispute with his neighbors.

"I can't rule out that it's not related," he said. "But I can't say that it is. I don't know."

The property dispute was over the issue of horse trails through the neighborhood. The majority of Roche's neighbors wanted to close them, and he sued to keep them open.

Some neighbors were relieved by the news and hopeful it would end the harsh allegations and finger-pointing.

"I think that it was an unfortunate chapter both for us and for them," said Don Krebs, president of the Compton Green Homeowners Association, the target of a lawsuit brought by Roche.

"Our main concern is that we were afraid it might have been a teenager. But his allegations were surely not borne out."

About two weeks before the incident, a judge had dismissed Roche's suit and had ordered him to pay about $120,000 in legal fees, Krebs said.

Roche filed an appeal a few days later. Tensions worsened with news of Baby Face's death.

Krebs is hoping community members can put the incident behind them.

"We're looking forward to more block parties, starting a newsletter," Krebs said. "We're going to get back to trying to build a community. That's what we're interested in."

The Humane Society's $12,000 reward will probably go toward educational projects, Roche said.

The $16,000 raised by Pasado's Safe Haven likely will fund other rewards in animal-abuse cases.

Keiko Morris' phone message number is 206-464-3214. Her e-mail address is: kmor-new@seatimes.com