Wannabe Influencer Tortured Animals Live for Likes, Cops Say
The 28-year-old woman allegedly filmed herself beheading and disemboweling small animals while they were still alive, all while urging viewers to cheer her on.
via YouTube
A 28-year-old Pennsylvania woman is behind bars on animal cruelty charges after police say she livestreamed herself torturing small animals in order to get more followers on social media.
Anigar Monsee was arrested Friday for four live YouTube videos that got her hit with four counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, Upper Darby Police say. Upper Darby Police Superintendent Tim Bernhardt called the case “disturbing and barbaric” in comments to The Philadelphia Inquirer. “Even more disturbing is that there are people out there that are entertained by this and there’s a platform out there that is allowing it,” he said.
The channel was quickly shut down after news of Monsee’s alleged crimes broke.
“Content that is violent or abusive toward animals is not allowed on YouTube, and we have terminated the channel in question,” a spokesperson for YouTube told The Daily Beast in a statement.
A probable cause affidavit cited by The Delaware County Daily Times alleged that Monsee, in one video featuring a live pigeon, “encouraged viewers” to like her video as she prepared to kill the animal and repeatedly made “sexualized comments.”
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“It appears that some of the viewers may have joined the livestream specifically for the sexualized content,” the affidavit said.
Monsee allegedly went on to cut the pigeon’s head off with a dull knife, and she is accused of similar acts in other videos: disemboweling a frog, killing a rabbit and a chicken. Police said they were alerted to the videos by the animal activist group PETA.
“Most people who might stumble across this would likely be traumatized by this content, but others actually seek it out,” PETA’s Kristin Rickman told the Inquirer, saying the videos were part of a fetish in which small animals are harmed for sexual gratification of viewers.
Court records show Monsee’s been held in the Delaware County Jail since Saturday, and awaiting a preliminary hearing scheduled for Feb. 5. It was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer.
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