Clint Riese
News Editor
The Scandia man who was arrested in November following the death of two horses on his family’s farm on Friday was charged with two felony counts of animal torture.
A criminal complaint issued in Washington County District Court accuses William Henry St. Sauver Jr. of shooting the horses.
Each count has a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
From the complaint
The following is according to the complaint.
Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputies met with St. Sauver, 30, on Nov. 10 after a woman who boarded her horses on the farm heard from St. Sauver that the horses had been shot and killed.
St. Sauver told authorities that hunters had shot the horses the previous night. He led authorities to an area in the field where he said he had buried the horses. He dug a hole with a skid loader but the bodies were not found.
Deputies returned the next day and St. Sauver led them to the bodies, which were partially buried. The horses were taken to a lab at the University of Minnesota for necropsy examinations.
A man contacted law enforcement on Nov. 12 after reading a newspaper article about the horses’ deaths. The man said he was at the St. Sauver farm on Oldfield Avenue on Nov. 9 and heard gunshots. He saw a man with two horses.
Approaching one horse, he noticed it was bleeding and appeared to have been shot. The man identified St. Sauver as the man with the horses.