LEXINGTON
Wild turkey tale ruffles neighbors
Rumors fly after birds vanish
By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff | September 21, 2006

LEXINGTON -- Five years after a flock of wild turkeys showed up in the
Shade Street neighborhood of Lexington, about the only thing that folks
can agree on these days is that now they are gone.
archived forever.


Whether they were harassed, forced out, or killed in the dark of night
remains a mystery and, more important, a source of deep division. Over
the past four months the question of what happened to the turkeys has
led neighbors who have lived alongside one another for three decades to
carry out a whisper campaign that has, in turn, prompted a police
investigation and an angry letter signed by neighbors. It caused one
resident to liken the drama to a particularly overwrought episode of
``The Twilight Zone."

But let's start with the turkeys.

When they first showed up everyone was thrilled, said Winslow Green, a
retired chief of surgery at Symmes Hospital who has lived in the
neighborhood for more than 30 years. People would sip their first cup
of coffee in their bathrobes, look out their kitchen windows, and watch
the elegant birds strut across their broad and grassy backyards.

``We all loved them," Green said.

Later, neighbors would congregate in driveways or on lawns, share their
turkey sightings, and speculate on lineage.

Then, this past May, the turkeys stopped strutting. A day passed, then
a week. No turkeys. By the beginning of June, rumors began to
circulate. A woman on Shade Street was in the middle of a divorce, the
whisperers said. Her new boyfriend, annoyed they were roosting in the
trees behind his girlfriend's house, had killed nearly the entirely
flock. It was a midnight massacre.

As the story was passed from one neighbor to the next, the details
shifted, but the body count held: five dead turkeys and two orphaned
toms. The next day, the story goes, there was a stack of five black
garbage bags put out with the trash.

The rumors spiraled at a block party until a neighbor could stand it no
more. According to a Lexington police report dated June 26, a woman
came to the station and anonymously reported the stories to police.
According to the Massachusetts Environmental Police, killing five wild
turkeys could be punished by a fine of up to a $5,000 and six months in
jail. Something had to be done.

A Lexington police officer spent eight hours on the case, according to
Lieutenant Detective Joseph O'Leary. In the end, no dead fowl, no
evidence, no charges.

``Just rumors," O'Leary concluded.

Janet Post and Buzz Marley cringed. They'd lived in the neighborhood
for a long time. They loved the turkeys. A line had to be drawn.

``I heard these things from people I trusted," Marley said. ``And the
turkeys were gone. You put two and two together --"

Post acknowledged that they had no firsthand information, no witnesses,
and no evidence. But she pressed on. If you believe something is wrong,
she said, ``you follow through." ``You're not going to just go along to
get along."

Last week the pair, along with a few other neighbors who were deeply
upset, settled on a plan. They would write a letter and, without naming
the suspected turkey killer, ask neighbors to sign it. Then they would
make sure the suspect saw it, possibly getting it published in the
local newspaper.

``We wanted her to know we knew what she had done," Post said. ``We
wanted her to know we weren't going to tolerate that sort of behavior."

The letter went through several drafts. In the end it started like
this:

``There is a persistent rumor that someone in our neighborhood recently
shot a family of five wild turkeys who have roamed about the
neighborhood for the past several years. . . . People in this
neighborhood are shocked and appalled."

The letter went on to outline that it was a crime to hunt turkeys and
to fire a gun within town limits. ``Virtually all of the neighbors know
about this unlawful act and hereby wish everyone to understand that
turkeys are always welcome in our neighborhood; turkey killers are
not."

One hundred and three neighbors signed the letter. Among them,
teachers, doctors, engineers. Though it was widely understood who was
suspected, no one confronted the woman or her boyfriend.

``Of course, she would just deny it," Post said.

Nicky Osborne first heard about the letter from a neighbor. Osborne has
lived in the same house on Shade Street for nearly 30 years. She is in
the middle of a divorce. She has a boyfriend who sometimes stays over.
She was the unnamed accused.

When she was confronted by the police earlier in the spring, she said,
she was flabbergasted. She's a birder, she said. Not a bird killer.
Police took note of the 10 bird feeders in her yard. When the
investigation was closed, she assumed the matter was over.

Then last week a neighbor, Tom Fenn, brought over an e-mail from Post
asking him if he had witnessed the turkey ``assassination."

``I daresay that you have the most immediate knowledge of this horrific
act," she wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail in Osborne's
possession. ``I know it's uncomfortable to witness against your next
door neighbor's friend -- especially since you probably didn't actually
eye-witness it. However . . ."

Fenn said he couldn't believe what he was reading.

``This is just getting so out of control," he said. ``It's absurd." He
took the e-mail to Osborne.

``It's a witch hunt," she said. ``Incredible."

According to Osborne, this is what happened: The turkeys were roosting
in her trees and would wake her boyfriend at 4 a.m. Exasperated, he
went out two days in a row and shot into the trees with an ``air pellet
gun." After two days of the harassment, the turkeys left, she said.
None was killed. No body bags stuffed.

Indeed, Marion Larson, of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and
Wildlife, said it would be ``highly unlikely" to kill five turkeys with
a pellet gun in one sitting. ``You'd have to hit them in the head," she
said.

When shown the petition Monday night, Osborne's face grew red.

``Let's see who my friends are," she said as she scoured the list.
Nearly every one of her neighbors was on it. Some she had known for 30
years.

Two names had been written and removed. Richard Canale, a 62-year-old
retired engineer who lives down the street, said he initially signed
the petition and then, after a quick jog, reconsidered.

``It didn't add up," he said. ``I realized it's all speculation. And
what's worse, it was speculation that had taken on the seriousness of
certainty, and that's more dangerous than if it actually happened."

Canale was reminded of an old episode of ``The Twilight Zone" in which
rumors spread that aliens have landed in the mountains. When the lights
on the truck of one of the townspeople begin to flicker, the townsfolk
-- already anxious -- start to wonder if he is really one of the
aliens. Eventually, they lynch him.

In the last scene, Canale said, there are two aliens in the mountains,
manipulating a machine that made the lights flicker in the truck. We
don't have to do anything to conquer these people, the aliens say to
each other. They will take care of it themselves.

Told of the story, Osborne shook her head.

``No one killed any turkeys," she said. ``What's wrong with these
people?"

An hour later and a few blocks away, Post shook her head as well.

``Well she's not going to very well admit it," she said.

But Post's name was the second deleted from the petition. ``I didn't
want to get sued," she said.