SAN JOSE — A man implicated in a string of cat attacks and disappearances in the Cambrian Park neighborhood has been charged with killing or harming at least four animals, and authorities are exploring whether there are more feline victims.

Robert Ray Farmer, 24, of San Jose, was arraigned Tuesday on three felony charges of animal cruelty, one charge of attempted animal cruelty and one charge misdemeanor battery, the latter count involving an unspecified human victim.

The case spurred a neighborhood to band together, and surveillance video of one of the purported cat abductions, coupled with a bevy of resident tips to police, led investigators to arrest Farmer on Thursday after they found him sleeping in a car where a cat’s carcass was later discovered.

After the arraignment, deputy district attorney Alexandra Ellis said Farmer is suspected in multiple animal abductions going back at least to mid-September.

“There’s no way to measure the pain these people are experiencing,” Ellis said, referring to the owners of the harmed cats. “Our hearts go out to them.”

Farmer was transferred back to the Elmwood Jail Complex in Milpitas on $75,000 bail, but not before a procedural discussion about whether he should be released on his own recognizance, reportedly sparking gasps and outcry in a courtroom packed with Cambrian Park residents.

One woman shouted against such a move, arguing that freeing Farmer would expose other pets to imminent harm, according to people who were in the courtroom. Judge Daniel Nishigaya ordered the woman out of the courtroom for the outburst. As a bailiff walked toward her, she left the courtroom on her own.

Ellis said the crimes alleged against Farmer, the son of a former San Jose police captain, involved “speechless victims” and “multiple violent acts committed over a period of time.”

Police say the animal theft that led to Farmer’s arrest was reported Sept. 21 about 9:40 p.m. at a home in the 1600 block of Hyacinth Lane. A home-surveillance camera recorded a man luring and then grabbing GoGo, an orange tabby, and running away.

After Farmer was detained, officers searched his car and found a dead cat hidden inside. While Farmer is implicated in GoGo’s disappearance, a necropsy has been ordered to determine the identity of the animal in the car.