Family claims mayor was killed by attackers, not a donkey

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 2 (UPI) —

The wife of a Texas mayor said her husband was targeted and killed at his ranch, and didn’t die following an aggressive donkey attack as police concluded.

Tonia Bohlke hired a private investigator to probe the death of her husband, Bill Bohlke, 65, who was found dead at his ranch in August 2012.

Police had claimed that the Hollywood Park mayor had been trampled to death by a stud donkey, but the investigative report said the cause of death is inconclusive, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

"There are too many inconsistencies for an alleged animal attack to have caused Mr. Bohlke’s injuries and death," Gary Deegear’s report states. "The patterned injuries, the boot prints, and the lack of expected evidence are enough to warrant further investigation into this matter."

Attorney Edgardo Baez said he hopes to have the body exhumed and the case reopened.

But Atascosa County Sheriff David Soward said that will not happen.

"There was no murder, there was no evidence of murder and never any new evidence of murder," he said

Baez said Bohlke had plans to meet with two men on the day of his death to sell them a bull.

They were never interviewed an an autopsy was never conducted.

"This has been horrendous for them," Baez said of the Bohlke family. "His wife has been non-stop searching for clues. It has been nightmare after nightmare."