5 Men Arrested for Blowing Up a Turtle

They say that future serial killers often kill animals as children. After hearing a rumor about George W. Bush blowing up frogs as a child, I figured that maybe plain old idiots do, too.

Perhaps it’s just a case of “boys will be boys”? Equally bad, if not worse things—rape, assault, etc.—have all been attributed to the old folksy saying. And while I’ve had trouble with the saying my entire life, many people chalk it up to normal male behavior.

After inquiring after my husband if he blew up animals as a child, as well as several other male acquaintances, I determined that the answer to the question is decidedly no. So what is it that makes people, say, blow up a turtle?

Four young men and a 17-year-old teenager from Knox, New York were recently arrested for doing just that. Jeffrey D. Robert (25), Michael C. Robert (22), Tyson J. Pincher (26), James Pincher (21) and Seth Pincher (17) all apparently have nothing better to do than sit around making pipe bombs and thinking up ways to blow up animals.

A search of their homes yielded explosives as well as the incident on video. Sheriff officials from Albany County say that they were originally inspecting the home regarding a possible Internet scam case.

Rather than hard drive crime, however, they found instruments for carnage. An illegal handgun, a sawed-off shotgun, chloroform, homemade bombs, and bomb-making instructions were all on the premises, as well as what looks like a healthy dose of animal cruelty and human insanity.

One undersheriff said that there enough explosives to “remove the house from the face of the earth.”

In the video, the men in question strapped a pipe bomb to a snapping turtle, after which they simply watched it explode. The sheriff’s office reported that all five of these suspects were clearly visibile in the video.

They’re currently being charged with conspiracy, criminal possession of a weapon, and torturing an animal, with bail set between $25,000 and $50,000.

The fact that they’re being charged is great—at least it’s not being written off as good ole boy’s syndrome or something equally ridiculous. But the question remains—what makes people think it’s okay to simply blow up a turtle, and where is the line drawn?

And we’ve all seen how things progress in crime reenactments—people move up after they get bored with whatever heinous act they’re already committing. What’s to stop these guys from attacking a person?