In what a school administrator termed a "disgusting" prank, carcasses of two dissected calves were left on Natrona County High School grounds sometime overnight Tuesday.

A school administrator found the calves just before 7 a.m. Wednesday and immediately notified police and Metro Animal Control.

One carcass was placed on a hurdle on the school's track.

The other was placed on a railing near the front entrance of the main building, with internal organs on the ground around it.

Wayne Beatty, Safe Schools administrator for Natrona County School District, said he didn't think the prank had "any real malicious intent. There isn't a message behind the way this thing was done."

"When I looked at the animals, my first thought was that this is an FFA project or another kind of project gone bad," Beatty said. "And as it turned out, that's exactly the way it worked."

As students arrived at school, some snapped pictures of the grisly scene with cell phones, but most were kept away from the area. The carcasses were quickly covered so students wouldn't be directly exposed to what NCHS principal Dean Kelly called "the gruesome nature of the animals."

Beatty said the carcasses were remains from a science-class dissection.

"At first glance, it did look like perhaps the carcasses had been mutilated, but at closer look there were specific organs being studied and specific assignments to be worked on," Beatty said.

School officials also noticed that the garbage bags used to wrap some of the animals' organs appeared to be school-issued trash bags.

"It seemed a little odd so we began looking at what classes in both high schools might have been doing a science experiment or a biology experiment," Beatty said, "and almost immediately we discovered that a calf dissection had been done at an advanced science class at Kelly Walsh."

Rumors circulated through the student body at NC about decapitated dogs on the track and dead cats in the parking lot, but none of those reports proved true.

By late morning, a possible offender had been found, her parents had been contacted, legal citations had been issued and school consequences had been carried out.

The only potential culprit so far, a 17-year-old female Kelly Walsh senior whom Beatty described as "a student that a teacher would be proud to have in any of her classes," has not shared names of other possible offenders.

"We don't believe for a minute that this girl was the only one, but what we know for sure is this person confessed to the situation," Beatty said.

Casper police issued a citation for trespassing and Metro issued one for improper disposal of animal carcasses. The girl's school is also reacting to accusations.

"We've taken what we feel is appropriate disciplinary action," said Kelly Walsh principal Brad Diller. "We think this turned into something it wasn't meant to be."

"This was a very, very poor choice on the part of an otherwise excellent student," Beatty said.

Contact reporter Megan Lee at (307) 266-0589 or megan.lee@trib.com