Who Killed Mickey? Mystery Of Murdered Dog Perplexes Edmonds Family

EDMONDS, WA — It's been more than a month since Paul Hensel found his toy poodle, Mickey, dead on his lawn. Mickey was with Hensel and his family for nearly seven years, and his emotions are still raw over the loss of the dog. But what's really eating him is finding out who would be so brutal to a 10-pound dog.

Mickey's death has been investigated pretty thoroughly already, but there are still aspects of the dog's death that just don't add up. A necropsy, the animal equivalent of an autopsy, showed that Mickey died from pneumothorax, or collapsed lung. His lungs were punctured by broken ribs, which vets believe broke under blunt force trauma.

Another animal like a coyote or owl is capable of inflicting such an injury. But that's not all. When Hensel found Mickey, he saw a section of flesh cleaved from the dog. It looked very clean, like it was done by a butcher or hunter — someone who knew how to handle a knife.

"It was like looking at a partially-skinned rabbit," Hensel remembers thinking the moment he found Mickey. "The angle of the cut between the muscle tissue, it was beveled; I knew the second I saw it a human did it."

Mickey's Routine

Hensel got Mickey at age 4-1/2. The dog was about 10-1/2 years old when he died. Mickey was so compact, Hensel could take him virtually anywhere. On flights to visit his family in Arizona, Mickey fit comfortably under the seat.

"He was the ultimate companion dog; you could hold him in your arms like a baby," Hensel said.

One of Mickey's regular routines was his nightly inspection of a stand of bamboo. Hensel lives on a rectangular-shaped property on the west side of Lake Ballinger. One of the long stretches of his yard abuts the Interurban Trail, a pathway along an old trolley line that extends from Edmonds to Shoreline to Seattle.

Every night after dinner, Hensel would let Mickey outside and the dog would go sniff the bamboo plants in the yard. Hensel suspected there might be rodents living in an old concrete wall at the edge of his property near the bamboo. Mickey would usually spend about 20 minutes each night scoping out the area.

On Aug. 25, Hensel let Mickey out to do his business. It was around 10 p.m. and his wife, Angie, had just returned home from work. She had pulled into the driveway around 9:55 p.m., Hensel estimates, and Mickey was outside by 9:57 p.m.

Closer to 10:30 p.m., Hensel got curious when Mickey didn't return to the sliding porch door (the dog knew how to open the door himself). He went outside, looked around, and eventually made the grim discovery.

Whoever killed Mickey did it within about a 30-minute window and did it with stealth, leaving virtually no clues behind.

No Fingerprints On The Fence

After Hensel found Mickey, he rushed the dog to a 24-hour vet surgery clinic. He wanted to confirm that the piece of flesh missing from the side of the dog was taken with a knife. The vet told Hensel the wound did not look like anything a predator would do. With that information, he called police.

Three Edmonds police officers responded to the scene and searched the yard with Hensel. They focused their attention on the side of the house that abuts the Interurban Trail. A perpetrator who came from the trail would have had to climb up a steep hill and hop a cedar fence to gain access to the yard.

But the police didn't find any evidence that someone entered through that side of the fence. Hensel had earlier in the day freshly stained the fence, and it was still wet the night Mickey was killed. Hensel also has scores of 8- to 10-foot tall sunflowers growing along the fence, and the flowers did not appear disturbed as, they would have if someone come through them.

If a human did kill Mickey, that person is likely very agile, Hensel thinks. Many have suggested a transient person did it, but Hensel doesn't really buy that. Just because someone is homeless, he said, doesn't mean they kill dogs. It could be a neighbor, it could be a teen passing by on the trail.

"It's almost like a Jason Bourne ninja assassination, but it's a dog," Hensel said.

Cat's Death Strangely Close

On Sept. 19, a worker at the Whisker City cat rescue in Shoreline made a gruesome discovery. Someone had broken into a caged outdoor area at the rescue shelter and killed a cat. The cat, Quixote, was found in a nearby Dumpster with his head crushed.

There's no doubt a human killed Quixote. Police found a yellow blanket with a note attached in Quixote's play area. It read, “The homeless need a home … just not my backyard, not Richmond Beach.”

Hensel doesn't know if Mickey's death is related to Quixote's. But, strangely, Hensel's house is about two miles due north from Whisker City. If you travel up Meridian Avenue from 183rd Street where Whisker City is, once you cross the Edmonds border the street becomes 76th Avenue West. That's the street Hensel lives off of.

Thanks, Edmonds police Sgt. Shane Hawley said there have been no other animal killings in the city since Mickey.

$10,000 Reward

Hensel says that Mickey's death has been investigated about as thoroughly as it can be. Edmonds detectives placed a hunter's camera in Hensel's yard in case the dog-killer returned (he or she didn't). The animal rights group Pasado's Safe Haven — which got its start in 1992 after three teenagers tortured and killed Pasado the goat in his enclosure at Kelsey Creek Farm — has assigned an investigator to the case.

Mickey's story has been featured on Puget Sound Crime Stoppers on Q13, and Pasado's has put up several thousand dollars toward the reward. Hensel has added about $6,800 of his own money to the reward total. He hopes someone out there looking for money will be willing to turn in the dog killer.

Plus, Hensel doesn't want anyone to go through what he has.

"It's hard to get over any kind of death, it's really hard," he said. "It wasn't a natural death and he was scared. His last moments must've been terrifying."

Know something about Mickey's death? Contact Puget Sound Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477 or Edmonds police at edmondswa.gov/police/anonymous-tip.

Image courtesy Paul Hensel