NY dairy farmer kills 51 cows, commits suicide

[pete02]

Not sure if this was the right place to post this but when I read this article, this was the first thing I thought of. A possible feeding frenzy and cover up. Either way, pretty strange. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DAIRY_COWS_SUICIDE?SITE=NCKIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

COPAKE, N.Y. (AP) -- State police in New York say an upstate dairy farmer shot and killed 51 of his milk cows in his barn before turning the rifle on himself.

State police found the body of 59-year-old Dean Pierson in his Copake barn on Thursday. A visitor found a note Pierson had left on the barn door that said not to come in and to call police.

State police would only say that Pierson was having personal issues.

The Columbia County hamlet of Copake is about 115 miles north of New York City.

Local farmers buried the cows outside the barn Friday. They would not discuss Pierson or what had happened, but one of the men said these are hard times to be a farmer.

PS: If one of the moderators can find a more appropriate place for this article, please correct it for me. Thanks

 

[Luis Miguel]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. The feeding frenzy cover-up doesn't sound too wild, they even buried the "evidence":

Local farmers buried the cows outside the barn Friday.

- I couldn't find more details about this case - In some cases of cattle mutilation they show cuts in the anus and/or throat areas, to drain the blood - I'm sure the C's and Laura pointed out something about this cuts, but I can´t find it -. Also a triggered Greenbaumed comes to my mind, this could be possible?

Q: What do aliens do to cattle?
A: Blood.
Q: (L) They take the blood out of them?
A: Yes.
Q: (J) They drink it? What do they use this blood for?
A: Nourishment.
[...]
A: Some is copy cat by "secret government."

 

[anart]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. The feeding frenzy cover-up doesn't sound too wild, they even buried the "evidence":

Local farmers buried the cows outside the barn Friday.

- I couldn't find more details about this case - In some cases of cattle mutilation they show cuts in the anus and/or throat areas, to drain the blood - I'm sure the C's and Laura pointed out something about this cuts, but I can´t find it -. Also a triggered Greenbaumed comes to my mind, this could be possible?

Q: What do aliens do to cattle?
A: Blood.
Q: (L) They take the blood out of them?
A: Yes.
Q: (J) They drink it? What do they use this blood for?
A: Nourishment.
[...]
A: Some is copy cat by "secret government."

It sounds to me like a very depressed man who was probably going to lose his farm and cows to the bank. Rather than let that happen, he killed them all and himself.

Very sad, but in a society with a crumbling economy and zero social support, I don't think any high strangeness is needed to explain the situation.

 

[Hildegarda]

Very sad, but in a society with a crumbling economy and zero social support, I don't think any high strangeness is needed to explain the situation.

yes. Dairy farmers have been hit very hard both in the US and Europe. This story and pictures from it was in the news last fall:

\\\http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/74394/protesting-farmers-spill-3m-litres-milk

 

[Keit]

I don't know if the original version of the article Pete02 posted was changed, but now it has this additional info:

But there appeared to be a method to his bloody work. He killed only the cows that required frequent milking, letting 50 others live, including heifers and calves.

Neighbors speculated that he was trying to spare his family the burden of caring for the animals.

I also searched on blogs, and found this news item. Quote:

"No one knows why for sure. He didn't leave us anything to help out," said his wife, Gwynneth.

She said she was home at the time of the shootings in the barn, but heard nothing. "Nothing seemed different," she said.

A neighboring farmer found Pierson and the cows at around 1 p.m. and called 911.

"It's horribly sad," State Police Investigator Abdul Weed said. There were no signs of foul play. An investigation is continuing, although no charges are expected, he said.

Pierson said her husband had not been acting unusual of late. She would not comment on a State Police press release that said her husband had been reportedly despondent over recent personal issues.

"He'd been talking a lot to his mom," she said.

Pierson apparently performed a farmer's mercy killing on his milkers, relieving others of that burden, neighbors reckoned.

There was nobody else in his family, neither his wife nor four children, who shared his passion for the relentless toil of dairy farming, they said.

Pierson's father, Helmer Thor Pierson, died in 2005 at age 92. He was a Swedish immigrant who started the dairy operation in 1951 along Weed Mine Road in Copake, christening it High Low Farm.

"Dean had no help on the farm and he worked really hard to do it all himself," said a neighbor, Susan Kiernan. She and three generations of her family have operated a dairy farm on adjacent Valley View Road for decades.

Kiernan's husband, David, and his brother own excavating equipment. And so they went to work Friday with a backhoe and bulldozer on their grim task. It's just what farmers do, helping each other across the shoals of grief and hard luck. These are hard times for dairy farmers.

"It's hard to hang in now and a lot of dairy farmers are going out of business," Susan Kiernan said. "For us, it's a lifestyle and we'll just keep going."

"We're just trying to get through this," said Pierson's wife. "We need to figure out how to keep the farm going. It wouldn't be right for all that work he put into it to go to nothing."

 

[Hildegarda]

I saw this one too. Sounds like it may have been a personal tragedy. The article portrays a very introverted individual who had worked hard to survive, has probably also learned to deal with his feelings by escaping into hard work, and eventually broke down. I see it has already been posted on SOTT.

 

[pete02]

It sure does sound like you guys are right, he was just depressed. It just struck me as odd because there was so little info on it at the time and high strangeness came to mind right away. Either way, its a shame. Thanks for the extra info you dug up there Keit. ;) With more to the story its easier to see that the man was depressed.

PS: My first post is what the original article said. Not that much, but yeah, the story has now changed.

 

[Luis Miguel]

Pete02:

It sure does sound like you guys are right, he was just depressed. It just struck me as odd because there was so little info on it at the time and high strangeness came to mind right away. Either way, its a shame.[...]

Same here :P, thanks all for the info.