A talking parrot in Agra, India, helped police zero in on its owner’s murderer after the bird started exhibiting strange behavior whenever the suspect was around,
the India Times reported.
Police had been stumped by the murder of Neelam Sharma, 45, and her dog until parrot Hercule's behavior made Sharma’s husband, Vijay Sharma, suspicious.
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Sharma told police the parrot acted oddly whenever his nephew, Ashutosh, came over.
"During discussions too, whenever Ashutosh's name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching. This raised my suspicion and I informed the police," Sharma told the Times.
Police questioned Ashutosh, who confessed to killing his aunt and the dog.
“We checked his call details and took him in custody. He accepted his crime and informed us that he was accompanied by an accomplice,” a policeman told the Times. “They had entered the house with the intention of taking away cash and other valuables.”
Ashutosh was apparently afraid his aunt would recognize him and he stabbed her.
"We got a lot of help from the parrot to zero in on the murderer,"
Agra police superintendent Shalabh Mathur told the Hindustan Times.
Studies on parrots' intelligence have shown that some have skills on par with 4-year-old children,
LiveScience reported. A study found that parrots can even exhibit logical thinking and can come to conclusions logically. The only other animal that has successfully completed such tests is the great ape.
"We now know that a gray parrot is able to logically exclude a wrong possibility and instead choose the right one in order to get a reward, which is known as 'inference by exclusion,'" LiveScience reported.
Hercule's crime-solving skills generated squawks of amazement online, with many noting the esteemed bird’s name.
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