One suspect in horse slaughter free on bail; another undergoes mental exam

Sandra Chereb

Thursday, Jan. 14, 1999 | 5:17 a.m.

VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. -- One of three suspects in the slaughter of wild horses declared his innocence and was freed on bail Thursday while another, a Marine in California, was undergoing a mental exam and fighting his return to Nevada.

Anthony Merlino, 20, Reno, posted a $60,000 bond and was released from the Washoe County jail.

He was scheduled to be arraigned Friday before a district judge in Storey County on charges of grand theft, grand larceny and maiming, poisoning or killing another person's animal.

"Mr. Merlino maintains his innocence," defense lawyer Scott Freeman told The Associated Press after meeting with the suspect on Thursday.

"Everybody is so quick to judge this young man. That's what we have courts for," he said in a telephone interview.

Merlino now lives with his parents in the Reno area and went there on Thursday, Freeman said.

Former neighbors at an apartment Merlino rented with friends in 1997 have described him as an over-enthusiastic hunter who blasted birds in the yard with a shotgun, gutted a deer on his living room carpet and bragged about his marksmanship.

"Although it is clichDe, it always is true - you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty," Freeman said.

"The Washoe County sheriff's office, the newspapers and some of the neighbors seem to think otherwise," he said.

Facing the same charges in the shooting deaths of the 34 free-roaming mustangs are Scott Brendle, 21, Reno, and Darien Brock, 20, Reno - two Marines based in California.

Brock, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, was transferred to a mental health facility after he mentioned suicide Wednesday night, according to San Diego County sheriff's Lt. Rick Figueroa.

Brock is contesting his extradition to Nevada.

Brendle has indicated he will agree to return to Nevada to face charges. He was transferred on Wednesday from the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms east of Los Angeles to a nearby jail pending his extradition to Nevada, said the jail watch commander, Sgt. Gerry Tessler.

"We had a great sense of relief that the arrest-part is over. Now the real chore is ahead - the prosecution," said Lydia Hammack, president of the Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Agency.

"The arrest happened so fast because all the different agencies put everything they had into it," she said.

Local law enforcement teamed up with state livestock officials, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Naval Investigative Services and the U.S. Marine Corps to track the suspects.

Hammack's group helped raise the $35,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction of the people responsible for the shooting.

She said the group has passed on tips to the Washoe County Sheriff's Department's "Secret Witness" program, which will decide who gets the reward.

"We'll have the bank cut a check for the amount and give it to the Secret Witness program," Hammack said.

Storey County District Attorney Janet Hess said several of the horses apparently "suffered for a long time" before they died or were destroyed by authorities who found the mustangs critically injured.

"This is an egregious situation," she said in preparation for Friday's arraignment.

Hess called a news conference at the county courthouse on Thursday, but then told reporters she'd be releasing no new information.

"I strongly believe that the DA's office should not be having discussions going before a jury," Hess said. "This case is going to be tried in a courtroom and not in the press."

Detectives said they received hundreds of tips from the public that provided leads. They cracked the case after the granddaughter of a sheriff's department employee overheard talk of the horse slaughter at a party.

"It started focussing when we started getting some of the same names," Washoe County Sheriff's Lt. Janice Lee said.

"The investigators just started piecing it together. Sometimes we'd only get a first name. Finally, each piece of the puzzle started to make a picture," she said.