A week after the tragic death of her cat, Coupeville resident Susan Winker says the pain is still raw.

On Tuesday, Sept. 8 Winker says she was at her Krueger Street home around 4:30 p.m. when she heard a terrible moaning.

“I go outside and here she is laying with her face in the grass,” Winker said. “She’s got blood coming from her belly.”

At first, Winker said she thought her beloved 10-year-old Siamese mix had crossed a wild animal.

After searching around for a vet that was still open, she took her wounded pet to Dr. Robert Moody, who runs a veterinarian clinic in Central Whidbey.

He shaved the area, Winker said, and that’s when they learned Willow’s injuries weren’t from another animal.

“He said ‘she’s been shot with a pellet gun,’” Winker recalls.

X-rays confirmed a pellet was inside the animal.

Willow was kept at the vet clinic, but she didn’t survive the night.

“I can’t believe this,” Winker said. “I live on a quiet street. I’ve lived in that house 15 years. I’ve had her for 10 years.

Word about Willow’s shooting quickly spread through the Peaceful Valley community, though no one had seen nor heard anything that day.

Everyone knows Willow, Winker said. “I brought her here from Boise. She has a brother named Max.”

“I let her out every morning and she comes in for breakfast. They’re in and out cats.”

Coupeville Marshal Rick Norrie said this is the first incident reported of this nature that he’s aware of.

“We’ve never really had anything like that in that area,” he said. “We normally get complaints about dogs barking or dogs off a leash.”

He said he’s also never had a complaint about people with BB or pellet guns in that area of town.

“If we were to find the offender, we’d charge them with animal cruelty,” Norrie said.

An animal cruelty charge is a misdemeanor offense and is punishable of up to a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail.

But the odds of finding the culprit are meager.

“Unless someone comes in and says they saw this person shoot this cat, we have no way of knowing,” Norrie said.

If a perpetrator were found they could also be open to a civil lawsuit.

“It makes me so angry,” Winker said. “If she was in someone’s garden they could have called. We’d never had any complaints before.”