My Life as a Murderer

Something happened to me on Tuesday that I will likely never forget for the rest of my life. Even as I sit here and write I am going through the events of Tuesday December 11th in my head. Obviously I am not sure of the long term effects of my actions but the short term has made me angry, sad and surprisingly more clear on some of my beliefs.
Before I start I just want you to know that at times I feel I am blowing this out of proportion and at other times I feel it's bigger than I think it is. So with that thought, read on.
My partner and I, meaning my business partner who also happens to be my brother-in-law have a landscaping business together. Right now it is leaf season and leaf season just plain sucks. We spend hours a day blowing leaves (and I would almost welcome a man named leaves rather than those evil things that drop from the trees), raking leaves, dragging leaves and I eat leaves for lunch (I'm trying to be healthy). Anyway enough about my disdain for leaves. We had split up on Tuesday morning, I was sucking up the leaves with our Billy Goat or simply "Goat" and he and our employee were dragging leaves at another property 5 miles away. We had finished at roughly the same time and met at our usual lunch spot, 7-Eleven. It was at this time that my whole life changed.
Aaron, my brother-in-law, told me that there was a baby deer with a broken leg in the back yard of the house next to our customers. It was obviously in pain and by the size of the hole that it had dug trying to get up it had been there for at least a day. At the time the only protocol he knew of was to contact local law enforcement and have them come out and shoot it. The police were notified and they kept on working until the officer arrived.
Now I was not there but before the officer arrived the deer seemed to be in decent health despite it's severely broken leg and lack of food and water I assume. I'm not saying that what the officer did was wrong I'm merely pointing out that the deer had a broken leg but no other injuries that were seen. And unfortunately when a deer has a broken leg it is typical to "put them down". Anyway, the officer pulled out his service revolver and shot the deer point blank in the head. After the job was complete he went back to his car and left. However, the deer who was apparently granted a quick death got nothing of the sort. It was still alive.
Now I am a big supporter of local law enforcement and for that matter all law enforcement but this is where the anger feelings come in. I'm giving the officer the benefit of the doubt; maybe they are only allowed to use one bullet or maybe he was nervous having never killed a deer (especially a baby). But for crying out loud (crying out loud does not do justice to my anger but I'm trying not to cuss in my blogs) you really have to make sure that the thing is dead. Your job is to put it out of it's misery, not increase AND extend the agony.
Well I arrived at the house about 1 hour after it had been shot and proceeded directly to the deer. I watched it for a minute and then it opened it's eye and stared at me. Maybe it was not staring at me but I felt like it was. And in a situation like this what is anyone's first reaction? Call a redneck! Fortunately for me I have quite a few rednecks on my phone tree.
I shuffled through my phone and got on the line with opossum (name changed for security purposes). I explained the situation and he told me to get a large rock and bash it over the head. Now I'm no fan of Peta and I certainly do not think that hunting should be outlawed but I could not see myself crushing the head of a deer with a large rock so that was out of the question.
We finally came to the conclusion that cutting it's throat would be the quickest and most humane way to ease the suffering of the deer. Of course the only things that I have ever killed were birds (when I was a kid with a BB gun and I only did it once because I felt so bad), insects (and I don't kill them unless it is by accident or if they sting or bite me), fish (while fishing and not with the intent of killing them) and that is about all that I can think of... Until Tuesday.
Then I called my Father. Although he has never hunted that I am aware of I was pretty sure that he had had to shoot a deer as part of his duties as a Montgomery County Police Officer. He was actually on his way to Rockville which happened to be right where I was. He offered to come down and do it himself, citing the fact that he had only needed to shoot one deer in his life and he was able to end it's misery with one shot. I declined his offer and thought I had better do this myself.
I found a utility knife and sat by the deer for a minute, my hand was shaking but I really needed to do this soon simply because the deer was obviously suffering and I might chicken out if I thought about it too long.
I found where I needed to cut and pulled the razor blade along it's neck. My worst fears came to be. (Right now I am literally shuddering as I recall the event). While the knife pierced the skin it would not cut through the rest. The deer did not move much but I felt like it was in even more pain.
I sprinted to my truck trying to find something else that was sharper but to no avail. I kept searching, throwing things around the truck and cursing myself for not having a sharp enough blade. Tears were welling up in my eyes and the fear that I had caused the deer even more pain than it was already in was already eating away at me. And if that makes me a sissy then I wear the name proudly.
Luckily my brother-in-law pulled up and I rushed over to his truck hoping he had something I could use. The first thing that I picked up was a saw. I quickly discarded it but with no other sharp tools available I had to use it. My brother-in-law was telling me to calm down but he later revealed that he would not have said that had he known that I had already begun the killing process.
I went back to the deer and Aaron followed. I silently prayed for the deer to feel no pain and I pulled the saw along it's neck.
Before I go on let me warn you that this is graphic and you may not want to know about this.
The saw cut quickly and evenly and right through the esophagus. There was minimal blood because I had not hit the carotid artery although that was my intention. I watched as blood and air came from the exposed throat.
After about ten seconds the deer began to thrash and I thought this might be it's death throes but it's lungs were still pumping and it made a sort of baa noise. I pushed on it's lungs and put my hand on it's heart, hoping and praying that it would stop beating... Hoping and praying that I had done the right thing and no more slicing or bashing was needed.
It sat quiet again for about thirty seconds and as I got up to leave it made another noise and sort of wagged it's tail. I can't tell you the emotions that whirled in my head. My first thought was utter hatred for the police officer but that quickly changed to anger at myself and then near hysteria.
There was no way I was cutting through the neck of the poor deer any more. I simply sat there with it's head pulled back and my hand on it's lungs so they would not try and fill up with air... and I waited. It must have been only three minutes after that the deer passed but I sat there for ten, contemplating my decision, cussing the police officer and in all honesty asking God for forgiveness while at the same time giving the deer what some might call it's last rites. And I don't say that in jest.
I left the scene with no confidence that the deer was dead so I did what anyone in my situation would do... I called a redneck, Big Jim (name changed) this time. I explained that situation to him and he also said I should have bashed it over the head.
This of course was not the information that I was looking for. However he did have some useful information. To tell if a deer is dead you can touch it's eyeball. If his eye does not blink then he is dead.
So I approached the deer and touched it's eyeball, the moment of truth that was weighing on my mind. Fortunately the eyeball did not blink. My trials were over and the deer no longer suffered needlessly.
I still question my decision and have asked numerous people what they thought. I hope for your sake you never have to make a decision like this, unless of course you have no heart!
The most unfortunate thing is that we later found out there are local places that will rescue these animals. Here is a great local Maryland site, Second Chance Wildlife Center The best non-regional site I could find was The Wildlife Rehabilitation Information Directory. There are many others out there that look like they could help. I urge you to consider this before contacting your local law enforcement.
Let me end on a final note. We have been desensitized to killing deer by seeing them dead along the road. Only this situation has allowed me to see that life is precious and fragile. And this gives me incite into the murder of humans.
After this situation I have zero tolerance and no remorse for murderers. We have also been desensitized to the death of humans, I think by movies and the news. But for a human to take another humans life, by gun or knife or bare hands, etc. to me they are clinically insane and have no further use for us on this earth. I know that this is a general statement and I believe there are circumstances such as war and self-defense that are exempt but a premeditated, useless murder to me deserves no less than equal retribution.
Yes, I am saying an eye for an eye and that may sound hypocritical to some but we will have to leave that for another blog.


Suffering is nothing. It's all a matter of preventing those you love from suffering. -Alphonse Daudet