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| {{Infobox event
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| | title = Enumclaw horse sex case
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| | participants = Kenneth Pinyan (Mr. Hands),<ref name="vice.com">{{cite web|last1=Sokol |first1=Zach |title=The Strange, Sad Story of the Man Named Mr. Hands Who Died from Having Sex with a Horse |url=http://www.vice.com/read/ten-years-ago-mr-hands-got-fucked-to-death-by-a-horse-716 |website=vice |publisher=vice.com |accessdate=1 January 2016 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/6f7zktS4B?url=http://www.vice.com/read/ten-years-ago-mr-hands-got-fucked-to-death-by-a-horse-716 |archivedate=7 February 2016 |df= }}</ref> James Michael Tait, an unidentified male, and a stallion
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| | type = [[Zoophilia]]c
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| | deaths = 1 (Kenneth Pinyan)
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| | cause = Acute [[peritonitis]] caused by traumatic perforation of the colon
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| | place = [[Enumclaw, Washington]], [[United States]]
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| | date = July 2, 2005
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| }}
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| The '''Enumclaw horse sex case''' was a 2005 incident in which '''Kenneth Pinyan'''<ref name="thestranger"/> (June 22, 1960 – July 2, 2005), an [[United States|American]] [[Boeing]] engineer residing in [[Gig Harbor, Washington]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/ech/news/35979664.html|title=Film to focus on aftermath of Enumclaw incident|last=Skager|first=Shawn|date=July 12, 2006|publisher=[[Enumclaw Courier-Herald]]|accessdate=2008-11-02}}</ref> died from injuries received during receptive [[anal sex|rectal sex]] with a [[stallion]] at a farm in an [[unincorporated area]] in [[King County, Washington]], near the city of [[Enumclaw, Washington|Enumclaw]]. Pinyan distributed [[zoophile]] porn under the alias '''Mr. Hands'''.<ref>[http://www.popcrunch.com/7-people-who-took-animals-for-lovers/ Horse Riding Mr Hands, Washington]</ref>
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| During a July 2005 sex act, videotaped by a friend, Pinyan suffered a [[gastrointestinal perforation|perforated colon]] from receptive anal intercourse with a [[stallion]] and later died of his injuries. The story was reported in ''[[The Seattle Times]]'' and was one of that paper's most read stories of 2005.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/horse-sex-story-was-online-hit/|accessdate=2016-05-11|title=Horse sex story was online hit|publisher=The Seattle Times|date=December 30, 2005}}</ref> It was informally referred to as the "Enumclaw horse sex case".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Macdonald|first=Moira|url=http://old.seattletimes.com/html/entertainment/2003097374_horse03.html|accessdate=2016-05-11|title=Infamous Enumclaw horse sex case to be made into movie|publisher=[[The Seattle Times]]|date=2006-07-03}}</ref> Video footage of Pinyan and a horse was later disseminated through the Internet.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Lyrical Approach to a Subject That Shocks |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/movies/01lim.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0|publisher=[[The New York Times]]|date= April 1, 2007|accessdate=April 22, 2013}} "The sex in “Zoo” is merely glimpsed and barely discernible in a few seconds of a video that the police had confiscated and that was circulated on the Internet after Mr. Pinyan’s death."</ref>
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| Pinyan's death rapidly prompted the passing of a bill in Washington prohibiting both [[Zoophilia|sex with animals]] and the videotaping of the same. Under current Washington law, bestiality is now a [[Class C felony]] punishable by up to five years in prison.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Fifty-Ninth Legislature|last=State of Washington|title=Animal cruelty in the first degree|work=RCW 16.52.205|accessdate=January 17, 2015|date=March 8, 2006|url=http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=16.52.205}}</ref>
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| A documentary of the life and death of Pinyan, and the life led by those who came to the farm near Enumclaw, debuted at the [[Sundance Film Festival]] 2007 under the title ''[[Zoo (film)|Zoo]]''. It was one of 16 winners out of 856 candidates for the festival,<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/new-movie-is-the-spawn-of-horse-sex/ | work=The Seattle Times | title=New movie is the spawn of horse sex | date=December 3, 2006 | first=Danny | last=Westneat}}</ref> and played at numerous regional festivals in the United States thereafter.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.indiewire.com/mattdentler/archives/013464.html |title=Matt Dentler's Blog: Cannes Countdown: Directors' Fortnight Lineup Impresses |first=Matt |last=Dentler |publisher= |date=2007-05-04 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929090146/http://blogs.indiewire.com/mattdentler/archives/013464.html |archivedate = 2007-09-29 |accessdate=2010-10-28}}</ref> 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]].<ref>"''Zoo'', which opens today in NY and LA, has just been selected as one of the features of the prestigious Directors Fortnight sidebar at this year's Cannes Film Festival". [http://emanuellevy.com/comment/popuar-articles-zoo-inside-the-controversial-documentary-about-bestiality/ Zoo: Inside the Controversial Documentary about Bestiality]</ref><ref>Eugene Hernandez, "[http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes_07_slate_set_for_49th_directors_fortnight_corbijns_control_opening_s '07: Slate Set for 49th Directors' Fortnight]", IndieWIRE, May 3, 2007.</ref>
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| ==Background==
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| Kenneth Pinyan had worked for Boeing for eight years.<ref name="thestranger">{{Cite news|url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=30811|accessdate=2006-04-30|author=Mudede, Charles|title=The Animal In You|publisher=The Stranger|date=February–March 2006|authorlink=Charles Mudede}}</ref> He was previously married to a woman and had children with her. He had previously moved from Seattle to [[Oak Harbor, Washington]].<ref name=Mudededoesntwanttotalk>[[Charles Mudede|Mudede, Charles]]. "[http://www.thestranger.com/features/feature/2015/07/22/22580444/ten-years-later-the-town-of-enumclaw-still-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-you-know-what Revisiting the Town of the Most Famous Horse Sex Death in Recorded History ]." ''[[The Stranger (newspaper)|The Stranger]]''. July 22, 2015. Retrieved on April 11, 2016.</ref> Before his death Pinyan was building a new house and a barn, in which he planned to place a horse, on the Key Peninsula Highway in [[Gig Harbor, Washington]]. He was about to begin making payments on his 30-year, $144,000 mortgage on it.<ref name="thestranger"/>
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| Pinyan previously lost the ability to experience certain sensations after suffering from a motorcycle accident, and became involved in increasingly extreme sexual acts such as dildos, fisting, and sex with horses. He was a part of a group of men who received anal sex from horses and sometimes had sex with one another afterwards. In 2015 [[Charles Mudede]] of ''[[The Stranger (newspaper)|The Stranger]]'' wrote that the men had a sexual fixation on large penises "that may have had nothing to do with horses."<ref name="vice.com"/> He also believed Pinyan did not truly love horses and was not a true zoophile.<ref name="vice.com"/>
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| ==Death==
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| The incident occurred at a {{convert|40|acre|ha|adj=on}} farm,<ref name="seattle1">{{Cite news|url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/videotapes-show-bestiality-enumclaw-police-say/|accessdate=2016-05-11|title=Videotapes show bestiality, Enumclaw police say|publisher=The Seattle Times|date=July 15, 2005 | first=Jennifer | last=Sullivan}}</ref> located in an unincorporated area in King County, Washington,<ref name="AndersonBarn1">{{Cite news|author=Rick Anderson|url=http://www.seattleweekly.com/2005-11-09/news/closing-the-barn-door/|title=Closing the Barn Door|publisher=Seattle Weekly|date=November 9, 2005}} "Tait, a truck driver who lives near the Southeast 444th Street<!--"Southeast 444th Street, WA" leads to an unincorporated area--> farm where the death occurred, "</ref> northwest of the city of [[Enumclaw]].<ref name="seattle1"/> Pinyan, and a man named James Michael Tait (who lived in a trailer next to the farm), plus another unidentified man, often visited the farm to engage in sexual intercourse with the horses inside.<ref name="thestranger"/>
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| Prosecutors later determined that the horse had not been injured by being forced to engage in sex in this manner.<ref name="AndersonBarn1"/><ref>Foundas, Scott. "[http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932505.html?categoryId=2471&cs=1 Zoo]." ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]''. Friday May 18, 2007. Retrieved on September 17, 2010.</ref> According to the Medical Examiner's Office, Pinyan "died of acute [[peritonitis]] due to perforation of the [[Colon (anatomy)|colon]]",<ref name="seattle1"/> and the death was ruled accidental.<ref name="seattle2">{{Cite news|url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/enumclaw-area-animal-sex-case-investigated/|accessdate=2016-05-11|title=Enumclaw-area animal-sex case investigated|publisher=The Seattle Times|date=July 15, 2005 | first=Jennifer | last=Sullivan}}</ref>
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| He was anonymously dropped off at the Enumclaw Community Hospital.<ref name="seattle1"/><ref>{{cite news | last = Keegan | first = Rebecca Winters | url = http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1583009,00.html |title=Have You Seen the Horse Sex Movie? | work = [[Time (magazine)|Time]] | date = January 28, 2007 | accessdate = September 17, 2010}}</ref> On July 2, 2005, a man asked hospital staff for medical assistance for his companion. Pinyan was found dead in the [[emergency department|emergency room]], aged 45. The man who brought Pinyan into the hospital had disappeared by the time hospital staff came to contact him.<ref name="seattle1"/>
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| 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:
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| {{quotation|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 having sex with one horse, the prosecutors could only charge Tait with trespassing.|[[Charles Mudede]], [[The Stranger (newspaper)|''The Stranger'']]<ref name="thestranger"/>}}
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| {{quotation|The prosecutor's office says no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.|''[[Associated Press]]'' at the ''[[The Seattle Times]]''<ref name="seattle3">{{cite news|url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/charge-filed-in-connection-with-man-who-died-having-horse-sex/|accessdate=2016-05-11|title=Charge filed in connection with man who died having horse sex|publisher=The Seattle Times|date=October 18, 2005|agency=Associated Press}}</ref>}}
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| ==Investigation==
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| After Pinyan died, the authorities used his [[driver's license]] to find acquaintances and relatives. Earlier news reports stated that the authorities had used [[Closed-circuit television|surveillance camera]] footage to track down Pinyan's companion. Using the contacts, the authorities found the farm where the incident occurred.<ref name="seattle1"/> The police tracked down the rural [[Enumclaw]]-area farm, which was known in [[zoophile]] Internet chat rooms as a destination for people who want to have sex with livestock, and seized hundreds of hours of videotapes of men engaging in receptive anal sex with horses. One of the videotapes featured Kenneth Pinyan shortly before he died on the 2nd of July.<ref name="seattle1"/>
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| ==Media reporting==
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| Jennifer Sullivan, a ''[[Seattle Times]]'' staff reporter, said that originally the King County Sheriff's Department did not expect the newspaper to report on the event, because "it was too gruesome." After an ''[[Associated Press]]'' report stated that the farm where the event occurred attracted "a significant number of people" who wanted to partake in bestiality, the ''Seattle Times'' decided that it needed to write articles about the case, since multiple people were involved.<ref name="WhattodoMesser">{{cite news | last = Messer | first = Lesley | url = http://www.editorandpublisher.com/news/when-a-man-dies-in-a-sex-act-with-a-horse-what-s-a-reporter-to-do/ | title = When a Man Dies in a Sex Act with a Horse -- What's a Reporter to Do? | work = [[Editor & Publisher]] | date = July 18, 2005 | accessdate = 2016-05-11}}</ref>
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| A video of Pinyan engaging in sexual acts with a horse circulated around the internet after Pinyan's death where he gained notoriety and the infamous name of Mr. Hands.<ref name="vice.com"/><ref>Lim, Dennis. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E2DD1330F932A35757C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 FILM — A Lyrical Approach to a Subject That Shocks]. ''[[The New York Times]]''. April 1, 2007. Retrieved on October 13, 2010. "The sex in ''Zoo'' is merely glimpsed and barely discernible in a few seconds of a video that the police had confiscated and that was circulated on the Internet after Mr. Pinyan's death."</ref>
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| ==Criminal charges, guilty plea, and sentencing==
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| The photographer, 54-year-old James Michael Tait,<ref name="AndersonBarn1"/> was charged with criminal [[trespass]]ing in the first Degree; because the owners of the farm, a third party, were not aware that the men entered the property to engage in bestiality. The third man was not charged since he was not visible in the videos seized by investigators.<ref name="thestranger"/> On November 29, 2005, Tait entered an [[Alford Plea]],<ref>"[http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/man-in-infamous-enumclaw-horse-sex-case-faces-new-charges-in-tennessee/ Man in infamous Enumclaw horse-sex case faces new charges in Tennessee ]." ''[[The Seattle Times]]''. October 20, 2009. Updated October 21, 2009. Retrieved on February 7, 2016.</ref> and Judge David Christie gave him a suspended one-year sentence, a $300 fine, and one day of community service. Judge Christie ordered Tait to never visit the farm again.<ref name="thestranger"/>
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| ==Aftermath==
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| After Pinyan died,<ref name="thestranger"/> [[Pam Roach]], a member of the [[Washington State Senate]] and a Republican from [[Auburn, Washington|Auburn]], crafted a bill that would ban [[Zoophilia|bestiality]] in Washington State.<ref name="WhattodoMesser"/> Senate Bill 6417, which made bestiality a Class C felony, passed on February 11, 2006 with all 36 state senators voting for it. Bestiality had been legal in Washington state since 1976; It was incorporated in Washington's Sodomy criminal statute [http://leg.wa.gov/CodeReviser/RCWArchive/Documents/1974/Vol1a.pdf RCW 9.79.100] and repealed by the state legislature in 1975. Mudede wrote "It was an almost comically easy law to pass."<ref name="thestranger"/> Bestiality had no political support in Washington state, and no group in Washington state advocated for bestiality.<ref name="thestranger"/> The law is [http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=16.52.205 RCW 16.52.205](3). Mudede wrote that reading RCW 16.52.205 "is very much like reading hardcore porn."<ref name="thestranger"/> In addition, the law prohibits "videotap[ing] a person engaged in a sexual act or sexual contact with an animal" "either alive or dead." Because of the provision against videotaping, Mudede stated that the law "points an angry finger directly at James Tait."<ref name="thestranger"/>
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| After the laws changed, people who engaged in bestiality moved to other states which did not yet criminalize bestiality since they did not wish to be prosecuted for their acts.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}} In 2015 Mudede said that he was unaware of any bestiality arrests in Washington State since the Pinyan incident.<ref>Sokol, Zach. "[http://www.vice.com/read/ten-years-ago-mr-hands-got-fucked-to-death-by-a-horse-716 The Strange, Sad Story of the Man Named Mr. Hands Who Died from Having Sex with a Horse]" ([http://www.webcitation.org/6f7zktS4B?url=http://www.vice.com/read/ten-years-ago-mr-hands-got-fucked-to-death-by-a-horse-716 Archive]). ''[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]''. July 16, 2015. Retrieved on February 7, 2016.</ref>
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| In 2009, Tait and two other people were jailed in [[Maury County, Tennessee]], accused of engaging in bestiality.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://wkrn.com/2009/10/19/3-accused-of-having-sex-with-animals-in-maury-co/ | title=3 accused of having sex with animals in Maury Co |publisher=[[WKRN]] | date=19 October 2009 | accessdate=2016-05-11}}</ref> In January 2010 Tait pleaded guilty in a Tennessee court to engaging in sexual acts with animals, and he was placed on probation.<ref>{{cite news | last=Sullivan | first=Jennifer | url=http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/felon-accused-of-running-animal-sex-farm-in-whatcom-county/ | title=Felon accused of running animal-sex farm in Whatcom County | work=[[The Seattle Times]] | date=16 April 2010 | accessdate=2016-05-11}}</ref>
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| Mudede wrote that at the time of the incident the residents of Enumclaw were shocked and angered by the incident. In 2015, ten years after the incident, Mudede wrote that Enumclaw residents were unwilling to acknowledge the incident.<ref name=Mudededoesntwanttotalk/>
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| ==See also==
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| {{Portalbar|Seattle|Biography|Horses|Sexuality|Death|2000s}}
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| * [[Zoophilia]]
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| * [[Zoophilia and the law in the United States]]
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| * [[List of horse accidents]]
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| * [[List of unusual deaths]]
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| {{Clear}}
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| ==References==
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| {{Reflist|2}}
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| ==External links==
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| *{{cite news | url = http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/trespassing-charged-in-horse-sex-case/ | title = Trespassing charged in horse-sex case | first = Jennifer | last = Sullivan | work = [[The Seattle Times]] | date = October 19, 2005}}
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| *[http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2005/september/i_im.html Boeing In Memoriam, September 2005]
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| [[Category:2005 in law]]
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| [[Category:2005 in Washington (state)]]
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| [[Category:2006 in law]]
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| [[Category:Accidental deaths in Washington (state)]]
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| [[Category:Animal pornography]]
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| [[Category:Deaths from peritonitis]]
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| [[Category:Horse-related accidents and incidents]]
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| [[Category:Enumclaw, Washington]]
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| [[Category:Sex and the law]]
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| [[Category:Washington (state) law]]
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| [[Category:Zoophilia]]
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