Just two Sundays ago, on May 17, three children were engrossed in a game of hide and seek within a tranquil suburb of Coventry. One of the boys, in his quest for a hiding spot, ran into the yard of a deserted home and came to an abrupt halt.
Before him lay a massive 20-foot-long concrete water tank, eight feet wide, its surface covered by algae and surrounded by unruly weeds. Floating ominously was the swollen body of a deceased cat, unmistakable even in its state.
The boy rushed back home to inform his mother, who promptly contacted Paula Singleton, the neighborhood’s devoted ‘cat lady’ and proud caretaker of ten cats. Together, the women made their way to the neglected property, where the stench hit them like a wall. “It was unbearable, making it hard to breathe,” Paula shared with the Daily Mail this week.
Equipped with a net, the 33-year-old mother, while her friend remained at the garden gate, retrieved not one, but two lifeless cats from the two-meter-deep water tank; a third was discovered lying in the grass nearby.
In a gruesome discovery, the cats showed signs of mutilation. One had its jaw completely gone, another was missing its tail, and the third was encrusted with dried blood.
As Paula continued to sift through the murky water with her net, more cat skulls and decomposed remains began surfacing from the dark depths. Rather than just a crime scene, she had uncovered a mass feline grave.
And to make matters worse, she immediately identified one of the missing felines as her very own Ginger Nut, who just weeks earlier had uncharacteristically disappeared from her home, not 70 metres up the street.
‘I started at half ten in the morning, and I didn’t finish till it was about quarter to ten at night, fishing out body parts,’ Paula recalled. ‘I found heads, lots of bones, rib cages, legs. They just kept coming.’
There are suspicions that a cat killer is on the loose in Coventry after the remains of several cats were found in a garden in the suburbs
A young boy came across the corpse of a dead cat floating on the surface of this 20ft-long concrete water tank, which was covered in algae and overgrown with weeds
A fortnight on from this horrific discovery – now thought to total the remains of around 16 felines – West Midlands Police is involved in an investigation being led by the RSPCA.
A spokesman for the animal charity told the Daily Mail they were ‘concerned about the distressing discovery of deceased cats and remains in this pond and our thoughts are with the owners. An officer was sent to the scene and we are investigating and are asking anyone with evidence that these deaths were non-accidental to contact us’.
However, for the roughly 5,600 residents of sleepy Canley in southwest Coventry, a resolution to this blood-curdling mystery simply cannot come soon enough.
For in a remarkable further twist, Paula also uncovered from the water a pair of blue surgical gloves, leaving many convinced this was premeditated slaughter – and terrified for what might come next.
‘You read about serial killers, they start with animals, don’t they?’ said dog walker Chloe.
‘I’m not a psychiatrist, but that’s a scary thing. I hope no children get hurt because there’s something seriously wrong with someone out there,’ she added.
So just what did happen to the so-called ‘Canley Cats’, and could the answer lie in the mystery of the abandoned property where a quarter of a century ago the former owner first built the concrete water tank to house his pet piranhas?
‘I’ve always been a sucker for animals,’ admits Paula, who reckons she’s taken in over 30 stray cats in the past 18 years but also keeps pet mice, rabbits and a dog. ‘My dad used to work in a scrap yard, and he’d bring me back stray kittens, which I’d try to keep alive.’
Also uncovered from the water was a pair of blue surgical gloves. Many locals are now convinced this was premeditated slaughter (pictured, the abandoned garden)
For the roughly 5,600 residents of sleepy Canley in southwest Coventry, a resolution to this blood-curdling mystery simply cannot come soon enough (pictured, the abandoned property)
He would also let Paula, who grew up in Canley, peer at the tank’s piranhas, albeit from a safe distance – a source of endless fascination for an eight-year-old girl, until the fish were removed when the owner left the area.
Today an undoubted feline expert, Paula sensed something was wrong long before the dead cats were discovered.
‘My kitten went missing on April 6,’ she revealed. ‘One of Ginger Nut’s sisters is disabled and he looks after her, cleans her and takes her outside, so when he didn’t come home, I knew something was wrong. Then, on May 17, the kids came and knocked on my door.’
That knock on the door changed Paula’s life. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever put it behind me,’ she confessed. ‘I didn’t eat for two days. I can’t sleep properly.’
The RSPCA, council and police have been of little help, she claims.
‘I phoned the RSPCA straight away,’ Paula recalled. ‘They told me it wasn’t an RSPCA issue because the cats were dead, and I was to phone the council. I was disgusted. I phoned the council; they told me it wasn’t a council issue and to call the RSPCA.’
So Paula took matters into her own hands. Of the three cats she recovered that were still intact, one has been confirmed as Ginger Nut courtesy of a microchip. A second, she suspects, is another of hers, Clyde, while a third still remains unidentified.
‘When Ginger Nut was identified, I think that’s when it all really hit me. I went into shock; it was just horrendous. I stood there and cried.
One of Paula’s cats, Ginger Nut, was found intact in the pond. A second, she suspects, is another of hers, Clyde, while a third still remains unidentified (pictured, some of Paula’s cats)
‘I’ve always been a sucker for animals,’ admits Paula, who reckons she’s taken in over 30 stray cats in the past 18 years but also keeps pet mice, rabbits and a dog (pictured, some of Paula’s cats)
‘His bottom jaw was missing, the bone was still there, but the fleshy bit was gone. The other two had blood all around their faces. On Clyde, it was dried blood in his fur, so he was likely to have been hurt before he went in. The third cat had blood coming out of his nose.’
When Paula shared her findings on Facebook, the response was astonishing. ‘It went viral,’ she recalled. ‘People started messaging me. “Was my cat there?” I’ve probably had about 50 messages, if not more.’
And this is another key part of this story. Because Canley has become notorious for the sheer number of pets disappearing over recent years.
Laura – in her 40s – who lives on the adjoining road to where the cats were found, told the Daily Mail: ‘I’ve never known so many cats go missing in one place, you just have to go and see all the posters on the bus stops. My Belle, she never used to leave the street or the surrounding streets, and then after September 12, 2022, I never saw her again.’
Paula echoed this worrying sentiment: ‘With most missing cats, there’s a sighting, or you’ve got a suspicion what’s happened. But here in Canley, they just seem to disappear. They just vanish and nobody sees them again.’
Could the shocking mass water grave explain the appalling string of disappearances over recent years?
A number of theories have arisen on social media as to what might have happened. Some have suggested that the cats were killed as part of an African ‘voodoo’ ritual with their body parts used for medicine, while others say they may have been used as bait for dog fighting – essentially training dummies upon which violent dogs can hone their fatal bite.
Of course, we cannot discount a more innocent explanation that the cats fell into the water tank and drowned.
After all, with so much algal bloom on the water, a friendly feline traversing the latticework of surrounding fences could easily mistake the water for dry ground.
The RSPCA told the Daily Mail: ‘We believe the incidents could have been accidental. Cats and wildlife can enter ponds by accident and can find themselves unable to climb back out, especially if the walls are high as in this case.’
However, Paula is not convinced, since it does not account for the injuries.
‘I don’t feel that they accidentally fell in,’ Paula said. ‘The smell alone from that garden… I don’t believe a cat would go near a pond that smelt so bad. They smell decomposition, they know danger, and they can sense water. They can smell death, and they aren’t going to go near a dying cat.’
If not an accident, perhaps the cats were ravaged by a wild beast? Indeed, Paula received one comment over Facebook suggesting that a fox may be responsible.
Again, however, Paula is unconvinced given the animals had been mutilated but seemingly not consumed: ‘Pretty sure, if I was a fox,’ Paula said, ‘I’m going for the body and leaving the head, legs and tail. Not the other way around.’
And why would a fox dump all the corpses in the same place? Perhaps more pertinently: which fox wears blue surgical gloves?
Remember, a pair of such gloves were found in the water with the bodies while a further two pairs were found in a nearby garden bin alongside dirty tissues. All of this suggests there could indeed be a serial cat killer on the loose in Canley.
However, with no CCTV on the property and the nearest video-enabled doorbell a way up the road, the perpetrator has so far avoided justice. At the time of writing, West Midlands Police have documented the finding as ‘criminal damage’ but are not pursuing an animal cruelty investigation.
An obvious lead may be the most recent tenants of the three-bedroom property.
However, it emerges that while a family did live there for a short while last year, they moved out in December. Ginger Nut, meanwhile, only went missing in April, some four months after the tenants left.
Police have spoken to the landlord, who does not live locally, but attempts by residents and this newspaper to contact him have failed.
This week the Daily Mail went to visit the property on Howcotte Green, which is currently on the market for offers over £160,000.
The abandoned house has an open porch door revealing several unopened letters. In the back garden, the open water tank has since been covered only by loose plywood boards.
Time and again on the doorsteps of Canley, residents brought up the terrifying hit Netflix documentary Don’t F*** with Cats, a show documenting Canadian porn star Luka Magnotta’s transformation from torturer of cats to the murderer of Chinese student Jun Lin.
‘It’s a well-known thing. People start with animals and then they do something worse,’ declared an elderly man who didn’t want to be named. ‘My kids are grown up now, but I think you’d be mad to let young ones run around outside. One moment they’re giggling, the next you’re fishing their clothes out of a pond.’
A council spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘We were made aware of this issue on Monday, May 18, and due to the potential animal welfare concerns, we referred the matter to the RSPCA, who are leading an investigation.
‘In addition, we have opened a statutory nuisance case and made contact with the property owner to address the condition of the pond.’
Surely, you might imagine, a major part of this ‘investigation’ would be post-mortems on the three relatively intact corpses to determine exactly how the cats died. Not a bit of it.
Instead, Paula Singleton has been told she will have to pay for autopsies herself at a mooted cost of £300 per cat.
Upset but undeterred, Paula set up a GoFundMe page on Wednesday aiming to raise £1,000 to cover three post-mortems, with any left-over money being donated to feline charities.
The page achieved and surpassed its target within 24 hours and at the time of writing boasts donations totalling £1,237.
The results of subsequent autopsies may give the clearest indication yet as to the truth of what happened on ‘the horror film set’ of Howcotte Green.
That is, unless the authorities decide to drain the water tank entirely. For who knows what other secrets are hiding at the bottom of the former piranha tank that has since become the most haunting of graves.
