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BROWN COUNTY, Ind. — A Nashville family said a large cat attacked and killed their beloved house cat.

They chased the animal through the woods with a gun because they believed it to be a mountain lion. “I’ve seen multiple bobcats. I’ve lived here in these woods for 37 years, I work in the woods,” James Halcomb said. “Ive seen multiple bobcats, very large bobcats, there was no confusion.”

Halcomb got a call from his daughter Kyla who saw the animal holding her siamese cat in its mouth. She waived her hands, trying to get it to free the animal and run off, but the animal did not budge.

“That thing was huge,” Kyla said. “It could easily take off with a small child.”

James Halcomb came face to face with the animal. He said the big cat was nearly waist high and appeared to weigh roughly 100 pounds. He and their dog went after the animal and eventually got it to run up two trees.

“Like it was almost trying to hide,” James said. “The cat scaled straight up this white oak to that crotch there about 30 feet up.”

Halcomb did not get a picture of the cat before it fled. He said the Brown County Sheriff’s Department spotted the animal when it ran in front of their car, however, we have yet to hear their account of what they saw.

“He said it was extremely fast, large brown cat, long tail, same size as a deer,” James said.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is investigating the body of their house cat for clues, but saw no additional evidence in the woods near Yellowwood State Forest.

Mountain lions are more than double the size of bobcats and have a long rope like tail. The DNR said they are not native to Indiana with the last confirmed sighting coming in 2010 in Greene County. Data suggests they have appeared outside of their normal ranges over the past decade, but the possible one in Brown County cannot be confirmed yet.