By Danette Gamble, Kansas City Star, Reader Advisory Panel

The story of the day on the net is of a poor cat that was duct-taped, mummy-style, by a young man in Philadelphia.

This act of cruelty should not be taken lightly.

Throughout history there has been a connection between animal abusers and murderers.

Remember Russell Weston, Jr. ?

He was the guy who killed two officers at the US Capital in 1998.

As a young man, Weston tortured and killed 12 cats by pouring toxic chemicals in their eyes to blind them; forced them to ingest poison, burned and cut off their tails, paws, and ears. Then he hung them from trees. Oh, by the way, he made the nooses loose enough to create a slow and painful death.

Not familiar with Weston, then how about Richard Allen Davis, Polly Klaas’ murderer?

As a boy, for fun, he would set “cat fires.”

Among the infamous list of animal abusers who graduated to human victims are:
Henry Lee Lucas (number of victims is unknown)
Jeffrey Dahmer (murdered 17 men)
Richard Speck (killed eight women)
Albert De Salvo, aka, The Boston Strangler (raped and killed nine women)
David Berkowitz, aka, Son of Sam (shot 13 people, six died, others are permanently disabled)

This list could go on and on, but, you get the point.

Then we come to Michael Vick. I know. Vick did his time. And he hasn't killed anybody yet.

I hope he is contrite about what he did. However, I also honestly hope that he is getting some serious counseling because his actions showed mental instability leaning toward violence.

So what to do about this young man in Philadelpha who duct taped that poor cat?

The judge needs to not only give this man the maximum time for his crime, he also needs to require the guy to get some serious court-ordered mental counseling.

If he doesn’t get it, then we may be adding the name James Davis to that long list of animal abusers turned murderer.