Enumclaw horse sex case

Kenneth Pinyan (June 22, 1960 - July 2, 2005) was a Gig Harbor, Washington resident who engaged in receptive anal sex with full-size stallions at a farm near the city of Enumclaw. He videotaped those sex acts and distributed them informally under the name Mr. Hands.

During a July 2005 sex act, which was being videotaped by a friend of his, he suffered a perforated colon, and later died of his injuries. The story was reported in the The Seattle Times and was one of that paper's most read stories of 2005.

Pinyan's death prompted the passing of a bill in Washington State some months later prohibiting both sex with animals, and the videotaping of the same. However, the video seen by many others was before the accident.

A documentary of the life and death of Pinyan, and the life led by those who came to the farm near Enumclaw as he did, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival 2007 under the title Zoo. It was one of 16 winners out of 856 candidates for the festival, and played at numerous regional festivals in the USA thereafter. Following Sundance, it was also selected as one of the top five American films to be presented at the prestigious Directors Fortnight sidebar at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

The media outlets that reported the story withheld Pinyan's name. His name was revealed on national radio by talk show host Tom Leykis in the summer of 2005.

Death

Prosecutors later determined that the horse, an Arabian stallion, which had apparently engaged regularly in penetrative sex acts of this kind, had not been injured by being allowed to engage in sex in this manner. The photographer, 54-year old James Michael Tait of Enumclaw, was later charged with trespassing, since this act took place on a third party's property. A third man alleged to have been present was not charged as his identity was not proven by evidence. According to the Medical Examiner's Office, Pinyan "died of acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon", and the death was ruled accidental. A further source states that the stallion was owned by Pinyan, who merely boarded it at the property concerned.

Other factors surrounding the death were apparently that the deceased, concerned about appearing in a hospital with an unusual internal injury and the effect on his security clearance as an engineer for aerospace company Boeing, had apparently refused his friends' urging to go to the hospital for several hours after being aware he was internally injured, and was either beyond treatment or dead when he finally reached the ER.

Media reports at the time of the trial suggested that despite seizing and examining carefully a large number of such videos from the property, no evidence of injury to the horses was found, precluding animal cruelty charges, and that the trespass charge against Tait were brought due to lack of grounds for any other matter:

It was only after Pinyan died, when law enforcement looked for one way to punish his associates, that the legality of bestiality in Washington State became an issue [...] The prosecutor's office wanted to charge Tait with animal abuse, but the police found no evidence of abused animals on the many videotapes they collected from his home. As there was no law against humanely engaging in intercourse with one horse, the prosecutors could only charge Tait with trespassing.

— The Stranger

The prosecutor's office says no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.

— The Seattle Times

See also

• List of unusual deaths
• List of horse accidents

External links

• ...What's a Reporter to Do?, Editor & Publisher, July 18, 2005 - Subscription required
• Trespassing charged in horse-sex case, The Seattle Times, October 19, 2005
• Boeing condolences archive, September 2005