A few weeks ago, Kyle Taylor Keller, 38, could go to bed without worrying too much about her horses. Keller, owner of Taylor Turn Stable, had spent years creating a safe space for her animals.

Now, she feeds them hay through a window at her dad’s house so they don’t eat at the back gate. At night, she gets up about every six hours to patrol her land, rotating shifts with her dad.

“If you see a stranger, run.” she says to her horses before she goes to bed. “You have my permission.”

On June 7, Keller found her horse Dashin' Kitty lying 6 feet from the back fence.  

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As Keller inspected the body, she moved some hay away from the mare’s face and saw a hole in the center of her head. She put her finger into the wound and was about a knuckle deep before she felt any resistance.

It took her a few days to say it out loud, but Dashin' had been killed.  

Dashin' Kitty, or “Pinch,” was a diva.  

She was a 20-year-old American Quarter Horse that was 15.2 hands tall. She had a white base coat, white mane, and black and pink nose. Keller called her Pinch because of the mare's uppity attitude and "pinches" of brown in her coat. 

“She was more spice than sugar,” Keller said. 

The former racehorse knew how riders were supposed to direct her. If a student was doing something wrong, Pinch would let them know by flattening her ears against her head, kicking at the wall or looking back with a sassy, condescending gaze. 

Pinch became a benchmark for the students because she was so particular. Keller knew a rider was improving if Pinch responded well to their direction.

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Riding student Kai Crossland, 17, was supposed to ride Pinch the day the mare was found dead. Crossland said getting Pinch to canter was the biggest accomplishment of her riding career. Cantering is where the rider squeezes with their lower legs and feet and then leans forward and clicks their tongue to get the get the horse to take three syncopated steps in each stride.

Crossland is one of about 10 of Keller’s students who were able to canter with Pinch. 

"She does get excited sometimes at the canter. She will do little bucks," Crossland said about Pinch. "Knowing I could ride her without anything happening badly, it definitely boosted my confidence." 

Pinch also was particular and moody. She was so bored during lessons that she looked like would almost fall asleep. But when they rolled out the barrels for racing, she and her ears immediately perked up.

Keller would consistently ride Pinch and had recently started entering barrel racing competitions with her. Their last competition was May 13. They hadn’t done anything fancy, but they were both working to get back to where they used to be — Pinch before her nerve damage in her gut and Keller before her struggle with Lyme disease from 2008 to 2018. 

Now, that progress is lost. 

To get more details on Pinch’s cause of death, Keller paid for CT scans of the horse's head.

The scans showed Pinch had been killed by a precise hit to the skull that went into her brain. There was no exit wound. The surgeon at Purdue who examined the images said they had only seen these injuries on euthanized animals. The person most likely used a bolt gun or cross bow.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is investigating but there are no updates in the case as of Tuesday.  

Keller has a few theories about why her animal was killed. She said she doesn’t believe someone she knows would have killed Pinch. 

The one thing she knows for sure is that this was not an accident.  

Someone had to get to the fenced-in part of her property, about 8 acres from the main road but in sight of her dad’s house, and shoot her horse at close range. 

Keller bought Pinch in 2008. The young barrel-racing horse would have fetched a large sum, but was sold to Keller at a reduced price because her previous owners wanted to make sure she had a good home. 

Most of Keller’s animals are retired hard workers, such as race or show horses, who were sent to help with horse lessons and enjoy the rest of their relaxed lives. While she didn't know that this is what her stable would look like when she bought her first 10.5 acres in 2003, she knew she wanted to create a safe environment and holistic lifestyle for her animals. 

At Taylor Turn Stable, horses graze and roam outside for hours and eat an all-natural mix Keller makes herself, which includes oats, barley, sunflower seeds and hemp pulp, among other ingredients. She trains her horses using the natural horsemanship method, in which the rider works with the horse instead of forcing them into submission. 

Keller, a licensed equine massage therapist, also massages the horses using different essential oils to address certain ailments. She uses peppermint for pain and lavender for anxiety. She incorporated this service into the horses’ routines a few years into her 10-year struggle with Lyme disease, which drove her to natural remedies in addition to traditional medical care. 

Having so many older animals at the stable, Keller and the other horses are accustomed to death. But not this kind. 

Normally, after a horse dies of natural causes or old age, the other horses line up and say their goodbyes with a few sniffs and then mourn for about a day while still resuming their routine. They also know it is coming because the horse slows down or has health problems.

But Pinch was healthy and about 10 years away from old age. After she was killed, the horses avoided the area she was found for about two weeks and they played less and stayed somber longer. 

“This has lingered,” Keller said. 

Keller doesn’t believe there is much more she could have done to protect Pinch. She had security cameras but they didn't capture anything useful. Her property is a long gravel driveway from the main road. Her house and her dad’s are on the property in sight of where Pinch was shot. She didn't hear anything that night.

The only methods that could have possibly prevented Pinch's death, such as putting the horses in the stables at night, would have restricted her freedom. 

“You can’t secure 32 acres,” Keller said. 

Still, it’s been a tough pill for Keller to swallow. She works hard to create a safe space for the horses. Now that's been violated.

Keller said she is doing her best not to live in fear, but Pinch’s death has interrupted her routine, just as it did for the horses. She can't relax.

She still lets the horses spend the majority of their time outside. But she patrols the grounds at night and panics almost every time she hears a gunshot — a sound normally familiar to someone who owns guns and has neighbors that consistently shoot them for fun.

“Typically, it would have been, ‘Oh, so-and-so is out shooting again,’” Keller said. “Now it’s panic.”  

Anyone with information about the killing of Dashin' Kitty, or Pinch, is asked to contact Detective Tiffany Mastin at 317-327-1270 or email her at Tiffiany.Mastin@indy.gov.

Contact IndyStar reporter Madison Smalstig at MSmalstig@gannett.com or 765-7172758.