Police always say that eyewitnesses are not 100 percent reliable, but officials have a double conundrum with a murder case in Sand Lake, Michigan, with a murder victim’s parrot reportedly having witnessed the crime and telling everyone who will listen who did the deed.
The murder victim’s parents insist that “Bud,” the victim’s African gray parrot, was present during the argument that ended in their son’s death, and periodically blurts out what he heard that terrible day.
As Nola.com reports, this case of murder began in May of 2015 when police were called to the home of 45-year-old Martin Duram and his wife Glenna. Both were lying on the floor of the home, Martin dead and Glenna barely alive. Both had been shot.
As their investigation developed, police began to suspect that the crime was a murder-suicide, with Glenna as their chief suspect.
Martin’s parents, Charles and Lillian Duram, think the parrot is the prosecution’s best witness, if only they will listen.
It seems that both the Durams and Martin’s ex-wife, who now owns the parrot, think the creature witnessed the shooting and, with that event imprinted on its mind, is mimicking Martin’s plea to “don’t fu**ing shoot.”
The bird continues to mimic its former owner’s voice but will also occasionally break into what sounds like an argument being voiced in two distinctly different voices, one male and the other female. The parroted argument also seems to end with the words, “Don’t fu**ing shoot!”
Charles Duram recalls the first time he heard the bird’s haunting mimicking: “Then, all of a sudden, this came out of the bird’s mouth,” Duram said. “I personally think he was there and he remembers it, and he was saying it.”
The victim’s ex-wife, Christina Keller, agrees. When she listens to the bird’s calls, she says, “I’m hearing two people in an intense argument. Two people that I know, voices that I recognize,” she said.
“It’s intense. When it happens, my house turns cold,” Keller ruefully added.
Since she recovered enough to talk to police, Martin’s wife, who was found lying wounded on the floor with him, has maintained she was not the shooter.
Police, however, have three separate suicide notes she left the day before the couple was discovered shot.
Police are still investigating the shooting, and prosecutors say they will decide whether or not to press charges later this month.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.