Nighttime in a cemetery can be a scary place to be. But for one Pennsylvania man, something sporting a fancy set of head gear lured him in resulting in charges and fines.
According to reports from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, an anonymous tip came in about a late night shooting inside a cemetery in Carbon County. Kicking off an investigation into the incident, the agency was able to place a suspect at the scene and bring him in for questioning. According to PGC game warden supervisor Lt. Aaron Morrow they were able to coax a confession from the suspect, finally revealing the details of the crime.
According to the post, the deer was standing in the middle of the cemetery when he was spotted by the shooter. Rolling up quietly in his truck, the suspect got to within 35 yards of the 151-point buck before pulling the trigger on his 9mm carbine pistol.
According to court documents, the accused, Brad Sell, 53, was hit with a pair of citations for poaching the buck inside the cemetery. He was in court in mid-November of last year where he entered a guilty plea to both charges of unlawful taking of game and unlawful hunting in a burial ground. He later paid just $850 in fines and restitution. Unlike many other states, Pennsylvania does not increase fines for trophy animals.
“During the interview process, [Sell] admitted to seeing this deer in a cemetery as he was driving,” Morrow said. “I can’t speak for him, and I don’t know what was going through his head, but it was a big deer. So I think it’s safe to say he saw a pretty large deer and, you know, made a poor choice.”
This is another in what seems to be a series of poor choices made in and around cemeteries. Last month, we covered the story of the infamous Hollywood buck that was killed inside a cemetery in Virginia.
While it might take a lot for most of us to venture out into a cemetery in the middle of the night, for some, the temptation is clearly too much to bear.
