Six people from Pennsylvania, three men and three males under 18, face hundreds of criminal charges for poaching hundreds of deer in Franklin County between August 2022 and January 2023, typically leaving the corpses to rot where they were killed, whether on the roadside or the front yard of homes, CBS News reports.

After scores of deer carcasses were found around the county, a citizen gave police the description of a vehicle seen spotlighting deer at night after the 11:00 cut-off and from which a shot took down a deer.  Pennsylvania State Game Warden Philip Bietsch saw a vehicle matching the description at a local gas station and then staked out a spot where many dead deer were found.  Later that night, he heard multiple rifle shots and then saw the vehicle from the gas station leave the area.  Stopping the vehicle, Bietsch found the occupants with a spotlight, a .22-Magnum rifle, and dozens of rounds of ammunition.

PennLive reports the three 20-year-old men and three underage males face 113 counts of the unlawful taking or killing of game or wildlife, 207 counts of the unlawful use of lights while hunting, 42 counts of the possession of loaded firearms in a vehicle, 62 counts of restrictions on recreational spotlighting, and 62 counts of the unlawful use of a vehicle to locate game or wildlife.  The adults also face charges relating to the corruption of a minor, and one of the adults faces endangerment charges for firing a rifle over another passenger in the vehicle through an open car door.

“It’s not unusual to have this ‘thrill-kill’,” said Game Commission Lt. Richard Danley.  “It is unusual to have this many. They were a pretty prolific group, so there was an awful lot of killing going on.”  Three 20-year-old men and three underage male have been charged.