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DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) – Animal rescuers and residents in southeast Dallas are finding garbage bags with the remains of dogs and roosters in them on the roadside in the dense woods and creek behind their woods. It has some worried about their safety.

“My daughters live right here, my son,” said a man we agreed to only call ‘Michael’ to protect his identity. “If they’ll do that to a dog, what will they do to a human?”

Michael normally helps the large number of stray dogs people dump in this area.

“I drive through here, I feed the dogs. I take care of them,” Michael said.

But when he and another animal rescuer recently saw someone hastily throw out bags from a pickup truck and speed away they made a gruesome discovery.

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Michael said, “It was the bags with all the dead dogs, mush, decomposed bodies, roosters, matted hair. It was hor–I mean, it stunk. You can imagine how it smelled.”

They would later find feed bags full of dead chickens alongside the road and more dogs in garbage sacks.

“It was something you might see in a horror movie,” Michael said.

Several residents nearby tell me they suspect there is an animal fighting ring near here. They fear it is gang related. But Michael says so far efforts to get a city or police investigation into animal fighting hasn’t worked.

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“There’s no evidence,” Michael said.

But, that may soon change. A Dallas Police Department spokesman told CBS 11 the department is working with animal control to recover evidence covered by water in recent rains. The spokesman said the department is confident it will be able to develop a case quickly after that.

Neighbors and police say a rooster fighting ring was broken up not far from that area just over a year ago.

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