Talk about a stool pigeon, er, parrot. At least that’s what happened in India recently when a parrot named Heera became a key witness in a murder case.
Police arrested Ashutosh Goswami and accused of trying to rob the house of his aunt, Neelam Sharma and then killing her. He also allegedly stabbed her pet dog. While Goswami was a suspect in the case, police thought they had their man after the victim’s widower read out the list of suspects and the couple’s parrot chirped in,“Usne maara, usne maara” or “he’s the killer, he’s the killer.”
Press Trust of India also reported that Goswami confessed, and while there is some debate about the role of the parrot, the agency did note that Shalabh Mathur, the local senior superintendent of police, said: “We got a lot of help from the parrot to zero in on the murderer.”
The widower, Vijay Sharma told the Daily Telegraph that police said the murderer was known to the family and offered a few names of suspects including the couple’s nephew, which he the read aloud.
“The parrot always used to be with my wife and I was sure he had witnessed the murder. It was unbelievable and to satisfy ourselves whether the police were going in the right direction we called out the names of all the suspects to our parrot. Surprisingly he screamed and made unusual noises whenever my nephew’s name came up. He confessed to police,” he told the newspaper.
