Woman says she saw a man sexually assault a dying beaver

A woman was horrified on Monday to discover a beaver she was trying to save had died while a man attempted to have sex with the animal.

Police arrested the man, 35-year-old Richard Delp, and charged him with animal cruelty and possession of methamphetamine, KXLY reports. The incident took place on Monday in Kennewick, Washington.

The woman, Whitney Nycole, posted photos of the beaver to Facebook on Monday evening. She said the animal had been run over by a car and requested help saving it.

“I flipped him over so he would walk but his leg is broken,” she wrote. “I got him on to a towel that I had in my car and dragged him on it til I got him closer to the pond and out of the way of traffic. Poor guy.”

KXLY reports that she then went home to find a box that she could carry the beaver in. She said when she returned 30 minutes later, she saw a man lying next to the beaver with his pants unzipped. She wrote in a Facebook comment that the animal was “deceased.”

“I caught a … man having sex with the beaver,” she wrote. “I’m traumatized!!”

The Kennewick Police Department confirmed in a statement to Newsweek that it responded to a “report of a transient male having sexual contact with a wild animal” in Columbia Park. Delp was booked to Benton County Jail and held without bail.

H/T Vice