Mystery as a 26-year-old miniature horse named Buttercop is found dead in Washington with a gunshot wound to the forehead as police investigate the second horse massacre in less than three months.

A miniature horse was shot in Washington, the second reported to police in ten weeks.

Buttercup the miniature horse was found dead with a shotgun wound in Maple Valley, King County, by his owner Monday morning.

Stevie Jacobson told K5 News how she was shocked to discover her beloved Buttercup was shot and killed in the grass.

“It was right between his eyes and a little bit above,” Jacobson said of the gunshot wound.

No arrests have been made and local police do not know who the culprit is or the motive.

Buttercup the miniature horse was found dead with a shotgun wound in Maple Valley, King County, by his owner Monday morning.

Stevie Jacobson discovered his beloved Buttercup dead in his pasture on Monday.

“There was no one in the grass,” Jacobson said.

‘We have looked around us. They must have done it from the top of the road.

‘Because?’ she said.

Adding: ‘Someone is purely evil… that’s the only thing I can think of. Why would you do something like this?

‘She didn’t want to get caught. She would run around and challenge us,” Jacobson said of Buttercup.

Buttercup is a big loss for another of Jacobson’s horses, Peanut, who is blind in one eye and was “pair-bonded” to Buttercup for safety.

“She would just follow Buttercup and say, ‘Okay, where are you going? I better go there,'” Jacobson explained.

According to local police, no suspect has been identified.

It comes just ten weeks after another horse was shot and killed in Washington.

Delanie Greer discovered her beloved horse LeMon had been shot and killed outside her stable in Tacoma on December 17.

“Every morning I have to reach out and remind myself that you are gone,” wrote LeMon’s heartbroken owner.

Brandon Gerner, 41, was charged Wednesday with animal cruelty and first- and second-degree murder.

In December, horse owner Delanie Greer discovered her beloved horse LeMon had been shot and killed outside her stable in Tacoma.

Brandon Gerner, 41, killed LeMon as a sacrifice to his friend Kody Olsen, who died after a shootout involving Pierce County police, prosecutors alleged.

“My horse was shot three weeks ago on my parents’ property,” Greer wrote on Facebook.

“Every morning I have to come up and remind myself that you’re gone,” Greer added in her heartfelt tribute to her beloved pet.

‘“People say you didn’t deserve this, but no living being deserves what happened to you,” he added.

Greer wrote after Gerner’s arrest: “He says he did it as a sacrifice, but in your death you linked him to another murder… even in death you are helping people.”