Malang, East Java. Police in East Java have released a student initially charged with killing three leopard cats, citing a lack of evidence – despite the photographs she posted to Facebook showing her posing with the strung-up carcasses of the wildcats.

Tri Ida Susanti, 20, a student at the University of Jember, posted a series of five pictures of the protected wildcats on her Facebook account on Sept. 12. In two of them, she is seen holding two of the lifeless felines by the scruff of the neck and smiling.

In her sickening Facebook post, Tri wrote: “Hasil berburu hari ini......Nyam....nyam......”, or “The results of today’s hunt… Yum… yum…”.

Adj. Sr. Comr. Heri Sugiyono of the Lumajang district police, said on Tuesday that his office would not charge Tri with killing or being in possession of the animals because of a lack of evidence.

He said police and officials from the East Java wildlife conservation office, or BKSDA, had searched her home in Lumajang, where she reportedly cooked and ate the cats, and visited a forested area in the subdistrict of Kencong where the leopard cats were supposedly trapped and killed.

“There’s not enough evidence,” Sunandar Trigunajasa, the BKSDA chief, told the Jakarta Globe, adding that the authorities only found a knife that Tri reportedly used to gut the cats.

“We’re struggling to locate the remains of the animals because the poaching occurred more than a month ago,” he said.

He also noted that Tri had deleted her Facebook account since the incriminating post went viral over the weekend. “We’re trying to use the [archived] photos as evidence. Maybe police can retrieve the deleted pictures,” he said.

The leopard cat, a small wildcat widely distributed across Asia, is not considered an endangered species but is nevertheless protected under Indonesian wildlife conservation laws.