KINGSFORD HEIGHTS, Ind. – Police are investigating the fatal shooting of a horse shown by a 4-H member. Another horse belonging to the family shot in the same pasture survived.

Dawn Forney said a lot of target shooting goes on in the surrounding area but she does not believe her horses were hit by accident. The horses were discovered wounded about 100 feet apart from each other.

“I just don’t understand what kind of monster would do that,” she said.

LaPorte County Police Capt. Derek Allen said it was too early in the investigation to speculate how the shootings occurred. “Hopefully, we’ll have some more answers sooner rather than later,” he said.

According to police, officers were called to the 10-acre spread off U.S. 6 south of Kingsford Heights in the northwest part of the state about 9 p.m. on May 31.

Forney said her 15-year-old son, Brandon, and 10-year-old daughter, Audrey, went out into the pasture to bring in the family’s six horses for the night. She said her son found one of the horses, “Tanner,” shot between the eyes, on the ground.

Forney said the other horse was shot in the mouth. The horse was standing but not moving, apparently suffering from some type of leg injury that may have occurred during the chaos brought on by the gunfire.

Forney said Tanner, a 14-year-old buckskin quarter horse, was later euthanized. The other bay quarter horse is about 13 and began walking gently the next day. “We think he’s going to be OK,” Forney said.

Brandon was preparing to show Tanner in the 4-H portion of the LaPorte County Fair before the event, scheduled July 12-18, was canceled two days prior to the shooting due to COVID-19.

Forney said her son, also a member of the LaPorte High School Equestrian Team, has shown Tanner at various competitions the past several years.

Tanner was reserve champion in his age bracket in the gelding class at the fair last year and earned first place during a Great Lakes Buckskin Association show two years ago. “He was a very well trained horse,” she said.

Forney said each of her three children have a primary horse they enter in competitions while the others are used strictly for riding on the farm.

“We have lived here for 24 years and never had any problem like this,” she said. “Now, the kids are terrified to let the horses out of the barn. It’s just devastating.”