A number of animals have been killed in satanic ways around the New Forest (Picture: Solent News)
In a village in Hampshire, the name Sybil Leek was one that many hoped would never be uttered again.
She was a white witch who stalked Burley, a settlement between Southampton and Bournemouth, in the 1950s.
Sybil walked around in a long black cloak and always had a pet jackdaw on her shoulder.
Eventually she moved to the US and locals hoped that was the end of her witchcraft shenanigans. But the peace the 70-year period of quiet has come to a shattering end for the people of Burley.
There have been a series of ‘sacrificial killings’ in the area recently, most recently a severed deer’s head that was found hanging from a street lamp.
Two weeks ago Andrew and Sarah Parry-Norton found a lamb covered in blood on their farm in Cadnam, 10 miles from Sybil’s village.
Andrew said: ‘I had a call at 7.10am from a neighbour who had found a lamb which had bled to death by her front gate.
Sarah and Andrew Parry-Norton saw a blood-covered sheep (Picture: Solent News)
A sheep that was found mutilated in the national park (Picture: Solent News)
‘As I was about to go to that, I had a call from agister Jonathan Gerrelli who thought one of my sheep had been hit by a car close to the Green Dragon [pub].
‘I went there to find it had a four-inch gash to its side and it had most of its intestines hanging out, so it had to put down at the roadside..’
What’s more, Andrew found another lamb with a slit throat and another ewe and her lamb stabbed in their shoulders.
He added: ‘It’s completely senseless, how do you get any kind of gratification for it?
‘The last thing we want is to see them suffer. I think that somebody has got this grudge against sheep, as bizarre as it sounds.
‘It’s almost like they don’t understand that this is not a computer game and there are actual consequences, you can’t just go around killing sheep. My wife was in tears yesterday.
Animal hearts surrounded by candles laid in a circle around the stone landmark at the top of Stagbury Hill in the New Forest in January 2023 (Picture: Solent News)
This sheep was found killed and sprayed with pentagrams in 2019 (Picture: Solent News)
‘It is disturbing that these attacks keep happening here. If we met this person in one of the lanes late at night and he’s armed, what happens then? If we come head to head, where does it end?’
Sarah also said: ‘It was horrific to see the poor sheep trying to make its way back home – they knew they needed help.
‘To see an animal you’ve looked after and nurtured mutilated like that is so upsetting.
‘We have a common right to have sheep out, and we should be able to do it and know they are safe.
‘You accept the occasional one gets run over – it’s just unfortunate – but to lose [so many] in one day is just too horrific.’
This is not the first time animals have been killed like this in the area after a deer was found strung up in a tree in Totton.
A lamb was also found with its throat slit last year and and congregation members from St Peter’s Church in Bramshaw found a cat hanging from a flagpole.
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Earlier that year, pigs hearts were found on top of a Bronze Age mount in Stagbury Hill surrounded by 30 candles.
A sheep was also found stabbed in 2020 and was dumped next to a cross and pitchfork in Cadnam.
In 2019 two dead sheep were found with pentagrams sprayed on their bodies and a cow was found stabbed in the neck with the number 666 sprayed across a nearby church.
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