By Kimberly James
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FORT VALLEY, Ga. — It wasn’t your typical police escort when Jason Spielman, a Peach County sheriff’s deputy, walked a pig home Sunday evening.
“In the county, you never know what’s going to happen,” Sheriff Terry Deese said. “One day you could be out looking for skeletons and another day you could be escorting a pig home. It’s something new every day over here.”
Deese was referring to the March 23 discovery of a human skull and other skeletal remains off Ga. 49 south of Fort Valley. The bones have been sent off to a GBI crime lab in Atlanta in hopes of determining the person’s identity. But it’s a slow, painstaking process.
Just another day in the life of a Deputy Sheriff. Escorting Pork Chop back home.
Posted by Peach County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, April 4, 2016
As for the pig, a woman called 911 shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday about finding it in her backyard on Gracewood Road, a dirt road off not too far from U.S. 341.
“I’m thinking it’s a wild hog, like one of these feral hogs,” Spielman said. “And I’m thinking, ‘Oh man, I gotta deal with this,’ because those things are nasty.”
But Spielman instead found a friendly domestic pig that took a shine to him.
When the pig started to walk up the road, Spielman decided to walk with him. The deputy did not want the pig to get struck by a vehicle. He used a walking stick to keep the pig near the side of the road.
The pig, a family pet, had escaped from its pen and wandered away from its Norwood Springs Road home.
“Something just struck me as strange because he didn’t act like a farm animal,” said Spielman, who was glad he took the time to befriend the pig.
The deputy named the pig “Pork Chop” and posted photos on his Facebook page. Deese, in turn, posted them on the Facebook page for the Peach County Sheriff’s Office.
“I never got that close to a pig before,” Spielman said. “I loved him.”