A Washington County man accused of turning alligators loose in a lake last summer was charged Friday with horse torture in the alleged shooting deaths of two horses.
A criminal complaint filed against William Henry St. Sauver Jr., 30, of Forest Lake, said he shot horses belonging to a neighbor and buried them in a cornfield. One was named "Saint Supreme Air" and the other "Sultan's Gift of Glory."
In September, St. Sauver and his father were charged with misdemeanors for keeping alligators at their Scandia farm in violation of city ordinances.
A game warden shot one of the alligators after people fishing from a boat found it in Goose Lake.
In the latest charges, the younger St. Sauver allegedly told the horses' owner on Nov. 10 that he had found the horses dead and buried them.
That evening he showed sheriff's deputies where he supposedly had buried the horses, but the ground wasn't disturbed. St. Sauver later took deputies to the actual burial site in the cornfield, the complaint said.
St. Sauver told deputies that hunters had killed the horses.
However, a witness who was loading hay on Nov. 9 said he had heard gunshots and had seen a horse running and blowing blood from its nose.
