MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Don Knight and his wife Marie have lived with their cat in the same southwest Miami-Dade County for several years.
"He showed up after Hurricane Wilma, just showed up, and we've had him ever since," Knight said.
Jeter was an outdoor cat, but he never went far.
"When we would go for a walk or to a neighbors or something, we would come back and he'd be waiting at the end of the driveway, waiting for a treat, but other than that he never left the yard," Knight said.
Jeter had pretty severe arthritis, and Knight said the cat didn't do anything in a hurry. But about a week ago, Jeter just disappeared.
Knight said he and his wife were hanging up a missing poster sign Saturday at the corner of Southwest 78th Street and Southwest 53rd Place when a UPS driver caught their attention and directed them across the street from their house. That's where they found Jeter dead in the grass, cut into pieces.
"It was just so terrible," Knight said. "It would have been one thing to find him on the side of the street, maybe having been hit by a car, but this, you know, is hard to really explain, in three pieces."
Knight said his wife is heartbroken, and they both want to know who did it and why.
"If there is some clown wandering around doing that kind of stuff, you know, you want to get him off the road, so to speak," Knight said.
Miami-Dade police are investigating.