EAST BUTLER — A one-time state dog officer and dog show judge was brutally stabbed to death at his home over the New Year’s holiday weekend.

The amount of blood and the number of wounds suggested the knife-wielding attacker did not target 74-year-old James S. Martin at random, according to investigators.

It may not have been a burglary gone wrong. The assailant may have known Martin and wanted him dead.

“It seems to indicate that some anger and rage was involved,” state police Lt. Eric Hermick said this morning. “It seems to show that there was some type of personal issue going on.”

But police admit they have no suspects. Investigators have some theories but no leading motive either.

Hermick called it a “complicated” investigation. He shared few details.

Martin was found dead Saturday morning in his home at 138 Tenth St. in East Butler, where he lived alone, authorities said.

A friend called 911 about 9:10 a.m. after discovering Martin’s body in the kitchen area of his split-level entry house. The female friend had stopped by the home to pick him up to go to breakfast.

She got no answer at the front door, however. When she walked in, police said, she noticed blood throughout the house.

“The evidence shows that something bad happened in different parts of the house,” Hermick said, “before (Martin) ended up (dead).”

The friend found his body on the floor in the hallway leading to the kitchen. She immediately called 911.

An autopsy Sunday ruled the death a homicide. Martin suffered stab wounds to the head, neck, chest and back, said Butler County Coroner William Young III.

Authorities don’t know how long the victim had been dead. Police said the last contact they knew he had was with the same friend, when she called him at 2 p.m. Friday to set up their breakfast date.

A contingent of state police, including forensic specialists called in from Greensburg, the district attorney and Young gathered to investigate the crime scene.

Police set up a command post at the East Butler Fire Hall.

Martin’s house, located at the corner of Tenth Street and Randolph Avenue, was surrounded by caution tape Saturday as investigators processed the inside and also looked for evidence in the yard.

There were no signs of a forced entry at the house, but the house was ransacked. The front door was equipped with a keypad lock.

“There was stuff taken,” Hermick said, “but we don’t know what all it was.”

It appeared that the unknown suspect made off with some surveillance equipment that was in the house.

The home was rigged with a sophisticated security system, police said, with multiple cameras inside and outside.

Investigators have obtained search warrants for the surveillance video and other electronic devices, including computers. But they are still waiting to get that evidence.

Hermick acknowledged police don’t know what the fruits of those searches would be.

Police took a number of knives from the house but it was not known if any of them were the suspected murder weapon.

A search of the house turned up badges that Martin used when he served as a dog officer in Butler County. There also were credentials, police said, of him being a dog show judge.

Martin formerly lived in Ohio where he was a sheriff’s deputy, authorities said, though they did not know in which county.

On Nov. 25, he reported that his home was burglarized on Thanksgiving Day and that two guns were stolen.

State police quickly charged Cody R. Howard, 25, of Slippery Rock with the break-in, and got an arrest warrant Nov. 25.

Howard was arrested early Sunday morning in Washington County. Police questioned him but Hermick said they do not consider him a suspect in Martin’s slaying.

Howard remains in the Butler County Prison on charges in the November burglary and on several bench warrants

Neighbor Dan Rettig, meanwhile, said he had known Martin for seven or eight years and had once helped him with some home repairs.

“He was a nice guy; kept to himself. He would do anything for anybody,” he said.

The road, which ends at a park with baseball diamonds, is ordinarily quiet.

---- “It’s very scary. I could have been robbed or shot,” Rettig said.