Matthew Kaczorowski caught!!!
THANKS TO KATIE WOODWORD!! go to the "Find Matt Campaign"
http://www.findmatt.org/
March 11, 2003
Cops finally get their Matt
Long-sought suspect in torture slaying of cat nabbed in Vancouver
By MIKE STROBEL -- Toronto Sun
The man atop every animal lover's Most Wanted list is behind bars.
The elusive "Matt," accused co-star of an infamous cat-torture video, was bagged in Vancouver over the weekend.
He had a cat and a dog, apparently unharmed, at his home when the cops showed up.
And tiny Katie Woodward, who hunted him for a year, is over the moon.
"I started crying, then I started laughing. I'm still having a hard time believing it," she tells me from her home in Haliburton.
You will remember "Matt."
He appeared in the videotaped torture and slaying of a female cat called Kensington in a Bathurst St. rooming house.
Anthony Wennekers, 25, and Jesse Power, 22, were sentenced a year ago to time served and 90 days respectively. Heavy time, eh?
Power claimed the video was an art project. The Crown's appeal of his sentence is set for May.
Meanwhile, "Matt" vanished.
But he was not forgotten. Katie launched the Find Matt Campaign, with a Web site, www.findmatt.org. And she kept the fire burning.
So did Toronto police detectives Gordon Scott and John Margetson, of 14 Division.
"I'd like to end the chapter," Scott once told me. "I'd like to catch that man -- even though it means I'd have to watch that video again."
On the weekend, the two cops went to Vancouver and arrested Matthew Kaczorowski, 21.
He faces mischief charges (animal cruelty charges have a six-month limit) and returns to Toronto for a bail hearing at Old City Hall tomorrow.
Katie Woodward will be there.
"With bells on," she says. "I've seen his face in pictures and in dreams.
"I want to stand in front of him and look him right in the eye."
Katie's Web site was key. The Vancouver SPCA called it up after hearing Katie on radio three weeks ago.
(CKNW picked up the story after Sun colleague Mark Bonokoski and I did columns on the case last year.)
On the site, an SPCA officer recognized a Vancouver street kid.
The cops there called Scott and Margetson, who soon were on their way to the airport.
And Gord Scott will have to watch that awful video again.
I have seen it, too. Once. Once too often.
You see some things in this business, but I've seen few things as unsettling.
It lasts 17 minutes. Wennekers hangs Kensington with a phone cord.
"This is good stuff, man," says "Matt." "Beautiful, man." Then he hacks off the cat's ear.
This after Wennekers and Power stab and kick the poor, mewling creature as it strangles. They skin it alive, gouge out an eye.
Kensington takes forever to die.
Her body was later found in a fridge.
Katie watched the video in court.
She cried, then she went on the hunt for "Matt."
She has been tireless. She has hounded media and businesses for help all year.
"Forget it, it's just a cat," lots of people told her.
"But I've got cats of my own," she says, "and I just couldn't give up.
"Not even if it had gone on for five years."
Tiny but sturdy
I don't doubt it. Katie is all of 5-foot-3, 110 pounds, but has a set to her jaw that belies her size.
Det. Scott calls the arrest a great example of cops, humane societies and the community combining forces.
Funny, but Scott once told me he had a hunch "Matt" had gone west, perhaps to Banff or Vancouver.
All that was known was "Matt" had been a squeegee kid in Toronto about the time Kensington was killed.
On its site, Crime Stoppers kept a video frame of "Matt" in his black, hooded sweatshirt with "Legalize Murder" on its back.
The Toronto Humane Society offered a $10,000 reward.
For "Matt," justice was just a matter of time.
Especially with Katie Woodward on his trail.
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Mike Strobel can be reached at 416-947-2265 or by e-mail at mike.strobel@tor.sunpub.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com.
A. Gibson
Toronto Coalition for Anticruelty Legislation (Bill C10 AKA Bill C15b)
anne@anticruelty.ca
http://www.anticruelty.ca
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead