A pet pig wandered away in Humboldt. Police say a neighbor killed her for no apparent reason.

A pet pig that escaped from her home was randomly slaughtered and butchered for meat in Arcata (Humboldt County). Police are investigating it as a crime. Pictured is a stock photo of a pig. A pet pig that escaped from her home was randomly slaughtered and butchered for meat in Arcata (Humboldt County). Police are investigating it as a crime. Pictured is a stock photo of a pig. Photo: Jason Nastaszewski / EyeEm Photo: Jason Nastaszewski / EyeEm Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close A pet pig wandered away in Humboldt. Police say a neighbor killed her for no apparent reason. 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

"It's just a really bizarre case," said Arcata Police Lt. Todd Dockweiler.

What he went on to describe makes that quote sound like an understatement.

It started on March 23, when a pet pig named Princess wandered away from her home in Humboldt County. Princess wasn't one of those teacup pigs that you can carry around like a chihuahua. She was a big girl, nearly 400 pounds, according to the Lost Coast Outpost.

But the fact that she wandered away wasn't out of the ordinary at all.

"Believe it or not, that's not a super uncommon call for us. We have a lot of loose livestock calls," said Dockweiler. "It is very common to have loose cows, loose horses, loose goats. [In this part of Arcata] it's still a neighborhood environment but a lot of folks have a few acres."

An officer responded and found Princess hanging out in someone's yard. The officer asked the property owner if he wouldn't mind keeping the pig in his yard until they could track down its owner, a practice Dockweiler says is common for these kinds of loose livestock issues.

The neighbor happily obliged and the officer went off to track down Princess's owner. Her owner was already looking for her too, so she was easy to identify. But when the officer went back to retrieve Princess from the yard about an hour later, he stumbled upon something shocking: a butchering in progress.

"Obviously that was a bit of a shock to everyone involved. ... Given the stage of the butchering process he was in, he must have slaughtered the pig very shortly after the officer left," Dockweiler said.

The man police say is responsible wasn't the homeowner, but "a man who was known to them" who was on the property with the owner's permission.

Thankfully, Princess's owner, identified as Carrie Hogan by the Lost Coast Outpost, wasn't there to see the gruesome scene for herself. But when she heard the news, she was devastated. Hogan told the local news site she bottle-fed Princess since she was a piglet and considered the pet a part of her family.

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According to Arcata police, slaughtering a pig that doesn't belong to you is a crime. Officers are expecting to forward a criminal charge to the district attorney's office after their investigation is complete.

"It's just not clear what the thought process was. He obviously knew the pig didn't belong to him and he didn't have the right to slaughter it."

While Hogan considered Princess a family member, under the law she's still considered livestock, so Dockweiler expects the suspect to be charged with "theft of livestock."

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Hogan told the Lost Coast Outpost she thinks the man responsible still has her pet's meat. She wants to get it back to keep him — or anyone else — from eating it.

"I think that the hardest part of this is knowing that there's somebody out there that's this kind of a savage," Hogan said.

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com.

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