Nurse poisons 2 cats and a pregnant dog with "special seasoning" a highly toxic insecticide called Phorate

POLK COUNTY - FLORIDA - NEWS AND COMMENT: a Florida nurse, Tamesha Knighten, 51, has been arrested and is currently incarcerated, on remand (Polk County Jail), for the alleged poisoning of two domestic cats and one pregnant domestic dog with eight unborn puppies with an insecticide called Phorate, which is highly toxic and very poisonous to animals including cats and dogs. It is so strong it causes almost instant death.

Police photo of Tamesha Knighten, 51, who suggested her neighbour's poisoned cat might be 'choking on a frog" when the cat died in great distress.

The nurse described the poison her "special seasoning" to the police when questioned. She was seen on security cameras with cat food wearing rubber gloves which made her behaviour look incredibly suspicious. The report is that the police saw Knighten on security cameras putting out a bowl of chicken.

The police questioned her about the "special seasoning" and decided that they would have to do some forensic testing on the deceased animals which they exhumed and on some food which they managed to retain as I understand it.

The police had arrived in fact at the moment the second cat was dying, frothing at the mouth and then dying not long afterwards; clearly indicating poisoning.

In this instance, the police have done a great job, which doesn't always happen in matters of animal cruelty but we have to give them great credit because they took the trouble of sending off samples to testing laboratories in Texas and Michigan (Texas A&M University and Music in State University laboratories). They identified Phorate.

'It makes me angry,' Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told a press conference, 'It certainly makes me angry. 'Why do you do this? There's no excuse for this. None. Zero.'

Comment: this is one of those typical stories of a neighbour who doesn't want their neighbour's cats coming into their back yard or in this instance it appears anywhere around her home. And she took the remarkable step of allegedly killing them by poison no doubt believing that she could get away with it. She miscalculated the highly effective evidence of security cameras. She jeopardised her work as a nurse in Florida.

I would have thought that if she is convicted her contract of employment would allow her employer, under the circumstances, to dismiss her summarily for gross misconduct in bringing the profession into disrepute. 

It appears that she is going to be convicted for the felony of animal cruelty, which is a serious crime in America and under those circumstances it would be hard for her to continue working as a nurse particularly as this was poisoning carried out surreptitiously in a highly underhand way.

She repeatedly denied killing her neighbours pets telling the police that as she is a nurse she had too much to lose. She makes the point herself that she was jeopardising her career which may, if the allegations are proved, come to an end.

In effect, she killed 11 sentient creatures because there were eight puppies in the womb of the Chihuahua that she killed.

Phorate: a generically, a powerful pesticide effective against insects, mites, and nematodes. It is a systemic insecticide that acts by inhibiting cholinesterases, enzymes involved in transmitting nerve impulses. - Britannica

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.