Preparing to Die
100% Fatality
Tragedy Strikes 
Finally, Torture Ceases
Poisoned Feed!
Tragic Death
Tragic Death
Postmortem Autopsy
Postmortem Autopsy
Postmortem AutopsyApril 27, 2003
(Colfax County, NE) - The carcasses of approximately 250 cattle were discovered today, Sunday, April 27, 2003 after an apparent poisoning at a ranch north of Richland (approximately 7 miles northeast of Columbus). The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating the incident in cooperation with the Colfax County Sheriff's Office, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, and the University of Nebraska.
The preliminary conclusion of representatives from the University of Nebraska is that the cattle died from some type of poisoning, possibly from a pesticide. The specific poison will not be confirmed until lab tests can be conducted by the University of Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Denis Blank, Chief Administrator of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, said, "Over the years there have been incidents of accidental poisoning from time to time caused by pesticides. Some pesticides are highly toxic." The animals will be disposed of in accordance with regulations established by the Department of Environmental Quality. The animals will not be rendered, eliminating any concern about contamination.
Investigators with the Nebraska State Patrol are attempting to determine whether the suspected poisoning was accidental or intentional. If it is determined to be accidental, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture will take over the investigation
NEBRASKA STATE PATROL
World-Herald April 28, 2003
Poison intentional, cattle owner says
RICHLAND, Neb. - Nebraska agriculture officials said Monday that they couldn't speculate on how more than 250 cattle ate a deadly pesticide, but the cattle's owner thinks it was intentional poisoning.
The dead cattle were discovered Sunday at a feedlot outside Richland, Neb., which is about 10 miles east of Columbus. The yearling calves, worth about $138,000, were owned by Jim Barta, a Fremont, Neb., pharmacist who had contracted with the feedlot owner last fall to raise the cattle until Barta and his sons were ready to ship them to a ranch in western Nebraska. "It was a feedlot, so there were no pesticides on this place," Barta said. "It was obviously malicious."
Barta said the perpetrator may have intended to hurt him or the feedlot owner, Brian Kluck, who has been at the center of a controversy over a failed grain elevator. Kluck was co-owner of Richland Grain Inc., which state officials closed more than a year ago after city officials lent the company $400,000 to keep afloat. Kluck's partners in the grain elevator were left in bankruptcy or with massive debts. Kluck was unable to pay an estimated $700,000 in elevator feed bills. Several suppliers have sued him. Kluck did not return repeated calls seeking comment. State officials wouldn't say Monday whether they think the poisoning was intended as retaliation against anyone, but they could not rule it out. "We are aware there's been some conflict in the past," said Terri Teuber, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska State Patrol.
The University of Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Lab was examining stomach contents and feed samples from four cattle. Dr. Dave Steffen, director of the lab, said early indications showed the poisonings were caused by a compound commonly used in insecticides. Samples also were sent to Michigan State University for further testing. "The clinical symptoms indicated a organophosphate," Steffen said. "With something like this, it was either a really horrible accident or it was intentionally given to the animals." The carcasses were buried Monday afternoon at the Butler County Landfill. Organic phosphate works as a neurotoxin. Barta said the cattle collapsed on the ground, lost muscle control, tried to get up and then died by drowning as fluid filled their lungs. The antidote that veterinarians on the scene tried to use was atropine, the same antidote given to soldiers in combat who are exposed to nerve agents.
The pesticide was ingested by cattle in three pens on the farm. In one pen, every calf was dead. Fewer animals died in the second pen and even fewer in the third pen. That indicates that the pesticide was diluted as the cattle were fed, said Greg Ibach, assistant director for the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. "We're doing some testing to see how it was introduced to the cattle," Ibach said. The Agriculture Department will continue investigating unless it is discovered that the act was intentional, in which case the State Patrol would take over the investigation, Ibach said.
Chris Peterson, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Johanns, said state officials were certain that the incident was isolated to Kluck's feedlot. "We have no reason to believe this is going to spread," Peterson said.
There also is no indication of bioterrorism, Peterson said, which is why state authorities, rather than federal officials, are handling the investigation. Nebraska officials did alert the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Peterson said. "The State Patrol made an early determination this was not an act of bioterrorism." Products such as organic phosphate can be purchased at a feed store, but not by just anyone, Ibach said. The pesticide is restricted and requires a commercial or private license. The product is commonly sold around planting season, and dealers must keep records on who buys it, Ibach said.
Barta said he was aware that Kluck had "all kinds of problems" but that it doesn't justify what happened to his livestock.
According to the Colfax County Sheriff's Office, which blocked access to Kluck's feedlot Monday, Kluck was not at the site.
World-Herald April 28, 2003
Poison intentional, cattle owner says
Monday on more than 250 dead cattle found over the weekend showed the animals likely died from a poisonous insecticide.
Tissues, stomach contents and feed samples from four of the cattle were being examined Monday at the University of Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. Dr. Dave Steffen, director of the lab, said early indications are that the poisoning was caused by a compound commonly used in insecticides.
"The clinical symptoms indicated an organophosphate," Steffen said. "With something like this, it was either a really horrible accident or it was intentionally given to the animals." The owner of the dead livestock wants to know how someone could get a neurotoxin that could devastate his herd so quickly. Jim Barta of Fremont, a pharmacist by profession, was stunned to learn that almost anyone could buy organic phosphorous at local feed stores. The phosphorous acted like a nerve agent, killing his cattle by fluid building up in their lungs. The phosphorous was in the animals' feed, Barta said. "I'd like something done about the sale of neurotoxins to the general public," Barta said. "If that's available to poison those cattle, it's also available to knock over a grade school or hit a water supply." Jim's son, Jack, knew trouble awaited at the feedlot as soon as he heard the phone message Sunday morning: "Hey, we might have a poisoning out here." But nothing the Bartas had encountered before prepared them for what they saw at the feedlot outside Richland.
"It's a cruel sight," Jack Barta said.
One or two cattle in a feedlot might die from disease or extreme heat. But never, Barta said, has he heard of so many deaths on a single day, in a single feedlot. The feedlot's owner, Brian Kluck, called authorities, and the Nebraska State Patrol and Nebraska Department of Agriculture were brought in to investigate.
Clearly something went terribly wrong, said Jack Barta, who owned the calves and planned to move them to north-central Nebraska once grass returned to the pastures. The question now, he said, is whether the deaths were accidental or intentional.
The specific poison will not be confirmed until lab tests later Monday by the University of Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Center. But the Bartas said investigators were discussing organophosphate poisoning. Organophosphate is a class of insecticide commonly used around farms and homes to kill insects, said Michael Carlson with the center. It can be poisonous to humans and large animals if they are exposed to a sufficient amount, he said.
Denis Blank, chief administrator of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, said there occasionally are reports of accidental pesticide poisonings. The Bartas and their Omaha lawyer, Joe Kavan, want law enforcement to investigate whether it was an intentional poisoning. Kavan said Barta plans to have independent tests conducted. It's one thing to have a few deaths from poisoning, Kavan said, but to have 250 "doesn't smell right. Something's odd." Thousands of cattle are fattened in numerous feedlots in the Richland area. Everyone uses a similar feeding system, Barta said. It's neither complicated nor tamperproof, he said.
Silage - chopped corn ear and stalk - is blended with mineral supplements in a mixing truck. The mixture then is delivered down a chute to cattle troughs. The last time the calves were fed was about noon Saturday, when farmhands delivered feed to about 1,200 cattle, most of them owned by Barta and other members of his family. The farmhands didn't check on the cattle again until early Sunday, when they discovered dead and dying calves. All the affected calves were confined to the three pens that received the previous day's first load of feed, Barta said. The feedlot immediately took on the look and feel of a crime scene. In addition to law enforcement officers, officials with the state's Departments of Agriculture and Environmental Quality were called in. Passers-by could see the carcasses about 100 yards from the road. "If it's an accident, then it's an accident," Barta said. "But if it's not, then I want to know what happened."
This isn't about a single cattleman losing at least $120,000 worth of calves. Barta said the two leading possibilities - contaminated food or intentional poisoning - have ramifications for all cattlemen.
World-Herald staff writer Tom Shaw contributed to this report.
Lincoln Star 04/28/2003
Officials investigate dead cattle
BY PHIL ROONEY / The Associated Press
Officials are investigating the apparent poisoning of 250 cattle found on a ranch north of Richland, about seven miles northeast of Columbus. The carcasses were discovered Sunday. The Nebraska State Patrol was investigating with the Colfax County Sheriff's office, the state Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska. "We don't really know if it's accidental or intentional yet," said Terri Teuber, a patrol spokeswoman. "None of the authorities at the scene believe in any way that it relates to terrorism," she said.
The preliminary conclusion by NU representatives was that the cattle died from some type of poisoning, possibly from a pesticide. The type of poison won't be known until tests can be conducted by the NU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Preliminary tests were to be run in Lincoln today with confirmation tests to be done in Michigan, said Christin Brown, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture. She did not know how soon the results would be available. Denis Blank, chief administrator of the state Department of Agriculture, said there have been cases of accidental poisonings due to pesticides over the years. "Some pesticides are highly toxic," Blank said.
The animals will be disposed of according to Department of Environmental Quality regulations. They will not be rendered to eliminate any concerns about contamination. If the state patrol determines the animals were accidentally poisoned, the Department of Agriculture will take over the investigation.
Lincoln Star 04/30/2003
Somebody killed cattle, owner says
BY ART HOVEY
Brian Kluck said he shares suspicions that someone deliberately poisoned the 250 cattle that died at his Richland feedlot over the weekend. Those suspicions were first raised Monday by the owner of the cattle, Jim Barta of Fremont.
In his first public comments on the matter Tuesday, Kluck said intentional poisoning "seems like the most logical explanation," and that feed may have been tampered with by the same person or persons he blames for vandalizing a propane line on the property. "I've been around cattle-raising all my life," he said. "This is just a horrible thing to me, just the worst thing ever to experience." There were no pesticides at the feedlot at the time of the incident, Kluck said.
"All I know is that they're checking samples from the feed and the rumen (cattle stomachs) and trying to figure out whatever the poison is." He said he's "certain there was nothing put in there" accidentally, and that he and his employees doled out the normal feed mixture of silage, mineral mix and rolled corn "that we've given the same for many years."
Whether accidental or intentional, Monday's preliminary outcome of lab work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Veterinary Diagnostics Center pointed to pesticide contamination of feed as the probable cause of mass cattle deaths and a $150,000 loss Saturday and Sunday a few miles east of Columbus. Even as the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Colfax County Sheriff's Office await the results of more detailed analysis at Michigan State University, cattle owner Barta said he's not ruling out revenge as a motive. "I'm sure it could be a reprisal against him. It could be reprisal against me. It could be reprisal against a guy that hates cattle feeders. I would say he (Kluck) probably has more enemies."
Kluck acknowledged his role in circumstances that caused the Nebraska Public Service Commission to close the financially struggling Richland grain elevator early last year and to apply its assets to an estimated $450,000 in debts. John Fecht, grain warehouse director for the PSC, said Kluck was the president and the principal owner of the elevator, and that its demise left about two dozen area farmers holding about $250,000 worth of deferred payment contracts for which they will not be reimbursed. "The big problem that we saw," Fecht said, "is that he used a lot of corn from that elevator to feed his own cattle back in the last three months of 2001 and he never paid for it."
But Kluck, 60 and a Columbus native, said he did nothing intentional to harm an elevator that has now been re-opened as a branch of Cooperative Supply in nearby Dodge. "The banks called in my notes and I could not pay off all I owed there. So what could I do?"
Meanwhile, Terri Teuber of the Nebraska State Patrol said she had no new developments to report in the case Tuesday. She said she did not know about Kluck's reports of weekend vandalism of the propane line. "Our investigators are exploring all possibilities. And I'm sure, if that information was provided to them, they're pursuing it as part of their investigation." Teuber said the patrol did not fault Barta for trying to draw the FBI into the case Monday:
"I think any owner would be distraught over the incident and we will do our best to conduct a timely investigation." As he had done on Monday, Barta argued again Tuesday for further restrictions on access to potent pesticides in Nebraska. "It's harder to get a driver's license than it is to get a license to buy pesticides," he said.
Greg Ibach of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture acknowledged that more than 26,000 farmers in the state hold private pesticide applicator licenses, but he sees that as part of a good pesticide safety record. "They are toxic chemicals if they're abused," Ibach said. "And it's a fact that rarely happens and it's a fact that this is being treated as a criminal investigation, not misuse by a farmer."