Weepiper: I'm sorry to hear about this horrible incident. I agree with those who say that you should keep your cats indoors from now on, for the sake of their own safety. An act of rage such as you describe can only be followed by more of the same, and probably by attempts to kill the cats by capturing or poisoning them.

You can take an outdoor cat indoors and keep him there, as long as you keep him amused. I was the third owner of my (now deceased) cat Chester. Under his first owner he was an indoor cat, but under his second owner, in a trailer park, he was allowed outdoors. He wreaked havoc throughout the park – digging up the neighbors' flowers, clawing the seat of a speedboat, catching birds underneath one old guy's birdhouse (by playing possum until the birds approached him to pull his fur for nesting, then grabbing the birds) – so I took Chester in at about 7 years of age to save him from a trip to the SPCA and probable euthanasia. Because of his destructiveness I had to declaw him, and he was a bit mopey till I got him his own kitten for companionship, but he lived a long, mischievous life and died at the age of 19. So I'm here to tell ya that turning an outdoor cat into an indoor cat can be done!