Fayetteville Police Department — Department Receiving Incident Calls
A 34-year-old Tennessee taxidermist and TikTok livestreamer was arrested Wednesday, November 11, and charged with aggravated animal cruelty after a video appeared to show him killing a wild opossum while a woman begged him to stop. Brandon Terry Honea was taken into custody days after the clip began circulating online, and he has since been released on bond as investigators in Lincoln County continue looking into the case.
According to TMZ, the incident was first reported on November 9, when the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office began fielding multiple calls about alleged animal abuse captured on video. The outlet reported that Honea appeared to be livestreaming while grabbing the opossum by its tail and repeatedly slamming it against a porch, with a woman audible in the background pleading with him to stop. Honea reportedly claimed afterward that the opossum had been killing his chickens, per the same report.
Two Agencies, Conflicting Accounts of Who Led the Case
Exactly which agency took the lead on the investigation depends on who’s asked. As reported by Yahoo News, the Fayetteville Police Department said it would work with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, describing TWRA as the lead investigating agency on the case. The Fayetteville Police Department said it referred the matter to TWRA in part because opossums are classified as Class 2 wildlife in Tennessee, according to WATE…