State police are investigating the deadly shooting of a cat in Donegal Township.

The 3-year-old male feline was discovered shot July 21, according to owner John McCullough, at his home on the 1000 block of Gameland Road.

McCullough said he last saw his black cat “Midnight” on July 19 when he let it outside.

“It didn't come home for a couple nights,” he said Monday, “and that's when I went out looking for him, and I found him.”

Sometime during those two days, the cat was shot.

“It was shot once with a .22 (caliber),” McCullough said. “You can tell that by the size of the hole.”

He found the feline's body under a recreational vehicle in the yard. Midnight was shot in the rump, above the tail, he said. There was no exit wound. No casing was found either.

McCullough said he was heartbroken when he found his lifeless companion.

“I was down and out for a couple days afterward,” he said. “It slept right there beside me.”

He's had the cat since it was born in a litter that his cousin's friend owned. McCullough wanted a solid black feline, thus giving it the name Midnight.

He described Midnight as being friendly to those it knew. “But he didn't go around other people. He ran from people.”

The cat spent time inside and outside.

“He didn't bother anybody,” McCullough said. “He stayed mostly in the yard here. That's what I don't understand. He didn't leave the yard too much. It makes no sense.”

If the cat wandered in someone else's yard, he said, all anyone would have to do is yell, and it would have beaten a hasty retreat.

He doesn't know if the cat was killed accidentally or deliberately. He said it's not uncommon to hear gunshots in and around the neighborhood from target shooters and hunters.

If the act was intentional, McCullough has a message for the culprit.

“I'd like to know why they did it because there's no reason for them to do it,” he said. “I'd just like to know — why?”

He said he buried Midnight in the yard July 21, and called police that same day.

Trooper Dustin Scheerbaum is investigating the incident as a case of animal cruelty. He was unavailable for comment Monday.

In a weekend news release, the trooper noted the shooter is unknown. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 724-284-8100.