- Here’s a bunch of very good furry, feathered, and chitinous boys and girls.
We’ve all heard K9 police dogs, police horses, and other such animal heroes. But they’re not the only four-legged (or more-legged) creatures that help find out whodunit.
We recently brought you a bunch of stories about animals who committed unusual crimes. However, we felt that article left things a little unbalanced, so we wanted to highlight critters who stand on the right side of the law as well.
Here are seven animals who helped solve serious crimes in their own unconventional ways.
1. The Telltale Parrot
In 2015, 45-year-old Martin Duram was found dead inside his home, while his wife Glenna had suffered a serious, but in the end non-fatal, gunshot wound to the head. The police believed this to be a case of double homicide and detectives started looking for the culprit.
However, the case took a surprising turn when a murder witness gave his testimony. The Duramses’ 20-year-old African gray parrot Bud had heard an argument between Martin and Glenna and repeated it word for word to the cops.
The bird went so far to even imitate the couple’s voices. Bud recited what are believed to be Martin’s last words: “Don’t f***ing shoot!”
Turns out, Glenna’s head wound was self-inflicted. That fact, together with Bud’s testimony, a jury would Glenna Durham guilty of first-degree murder.
2. Scooby-Doo’s Testimony
Even animals that can’t speak human language can give testimony in court. That’s what Scooby-Doo, a great Dane from France did.
Scooby-Doo’s owner was found hanging from her apartment’s ceiling with a rope around her neck. Although the case seemed like a clear-cut suicide, the woman’s family persuaded the police to open a murder investigation.
They identified and arrested a suspect. As part of the prosecution’s strategy, Scooby-Doo was brought to the witness stand.
Seeing the suspect, the usually docile Scooby became enraged and “barked furiously” at the man. The court accepted Scooby-Doo’s “testimony” as valid evidence, probably setting a world first for a dog giving witness in court.
3. The Dog Turd of Truth
In 2000, an intruder committed a triple murder at a property in Lakeville, Indiana, killing Wayne Shumaker, Corby Myers, and Lynn Ganger. The only witnesses to the events were Sears’ two dogs, Hannah and Scout, and they weren’t as talkative as Scooby-Doo.
However, they did end up helping in their own way. The duo of German shorthaired pointers were prolific poopers, and the yard outside Sears’ home was littered with turds.
As fortune would have it, one of the murderers stepped into a poop pile, leaving behind a shoe print. That, along with doggie DNA extracted from the poop, helped build a case against Phillip Stroud, who received a death sentence in 2002.
4. A Wild Duck Chase
In 2020, 92-year-old North Carolina grandmother Nellie Sullivan went missing. The cops suspected Sullivan’s granddaughter, Angela Wamsley, and her boyfriend, Mark Barnes, murdered her, as they had been charged with concealing Sullivan’s death and illegally collecting her pension.
They just couldn’t prove it — until they tried to rescue Sullivan’s pet duck from Wamsley and Barnes, who had been found guilty of abusing the bird.
While the cops tried to catch it, the duck ran underneath a trailer sitting in Sullivan’s yard. As they tried to get the duck out, cops found a strange, locked container half-buried beneath the trailer.
Inside was the decomposed corpse of Nellie Sullivan. Needless to say, the jig was up for Wamsley and Barnes.
5. A Guardian Cockatoo
On Christmas Eve 2001, two home invaders broke into the house of Texas resident Kevin Butler. The intruders bound Butler, beat him savagely, and eventually stabbed him to death.
However, Butler had a guardian. His pet cockatoo Larry Bird attacked the criminals, giving his life in a fight to rescue his owner.
Due to the cockatoo attack, one of the murderers smeared a bloody handprint on the home’s wall. Additionally, his blood and skin tissue were found on Larry Bird’s beak and claws.
DNA tests showed that the blood belonged to Daniel Torres, a disgruntled ex-employee of Butler’s company. Faced with the evidence the cops had, thanks to Larry, Torres confessed to the murder and gave up his accomplice, his half-brother Johnny Serna.
6. Innocent Puppy’s Blood
In 1998, a horrible scene lay in a Seattle, Washington, home. Someone had murdered Raquel Rivera and Jay Johnson, alongside their pitbull/lab mix puppy, Chief.
The police suspected Ken Leuluaialii and George Tuilefano of the murder. However, they had been careful, and no blood or DNA from Rivera and Johnson was found on their clothes.
But they hadn’t accounted for the puppy. The cops discovered blood splatters of non-human origin on Lauluaialii’s and Tuilefano’s jackets and pants.
Upon closer inspection, the blood belonged to Chief. The murderers went to prison, and the case marked the first time a dog’s DNA helped secure a conviction in the U.S.
7. The Maimed Grasshopper
When trying to solve a murder, you can’t ignore any evidence, no matter how small. In 1985, a woman was murdered in Texas, and the cops struggled to prove that their main suspect was the killer.
Then, the investigators found something unusual on the victim’s body — a mangled, dead grasshopper that was missing a leg. And what do you know? On one of the suspect’s pant legs, they discovered a severed insect leg.
Entomologist M. Lee Geoff was called in to check if the leg and grasshopper were a match (this was in the days before reliable DNA testing). Lo and behold, the fracture lines on the leg and bug fit together perfectly.
The defense tried arguing that all grasshoppers break their legs in the same pattern, but neither Geoff nor the jury bought it. The suspect was convicted of murder, thanks to the sacrifice of the hapless grasshopper.