Murder With My Husband - 39. The Unlikely Heroes

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

In this episode of MWMH, Payton tells Garrett multiple stories of hero Parrots. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case sources: https://digg.com/2016/parrot-witness-protection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UknoTTG7uK8 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspect-murder-witnessed-family-parrot-appears-court-n691271 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woman-murder-husband-parrot-witness-don-t-shoot-convicted-michigan-glenna-duram-a7852476.html https://www.thedodo.com/victims-pet-parrot-helps-solve-445024746.html https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2105 https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/medieval-animal-trials-why-theyre-not-quite-as-crazy-as-they-sound.html Follow our socials: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Marlin. And I'm Garrett Marlin. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Oh my gosh, we missed you guys last week. It felt like it was eight weeks since we've done a podcast. Doesn't it feel so long? I know. Can you move it? It's only been one week that we haven't done it. I know. It feels like it's been forever since we've been in this room recording. But we did have a really awesome holiday and it was nice to just have some time So thank you guys for being patient with us while we took some time off Garrett, it's your 10 seconds so go ahead. Well, we got a Christmas tree. Yes, it took a bit But we found one and so I guess that can be my 10 seconds

Yeah, we did find a Christmas tree. It's flocked. We were really wanting a flocked one and We love it. It is the only piece of furniture we have in our living room at the moment, but we still love it. So at least for festive. That is true. We bought a new couch. So we're waiting on the couch. And right now we're just sitting on the floor.

I did actually wrap a whole bunch of empty cheesed boxes underneath the tree to make it look like we had presents to open because we usually don't do presents. So we got fake cheese at box at presents underneath the Christmas tree. We mentioned on Instagram that we have some exciting news and so here we go. We have decided to do a giveaway this holiday season. We are giving away a brand new pair of Apple AirPods for you to listen to our podcast

on. If you're not an Apple user, no worries. We will do a Visa gift card for the same price as the AirPods instead. To enter this giveaway, you just need to go to our Instagram. Our username is Murder with my husband and our most recent post will be where you can enter the giveaway and the details of everything will be on there. So if you're interested, go do that. The winner will be drawn and announced next Sunday, so you only have a week to enter, so hurry and get on it. If you already have AirPods, keep in mind

this would be a great gift to knock off your holiday gift list or you can just choose the gift card instead. And we are not sponsored by Apple. So no, this is not sponsored giveaway. But if anyone knows Apple and wants to make this a sponsored giveaway, please do. It's just the Christmas season and paint and I thought it would be kind of fun to do a little giveaway. Yeah. And also some other exciting news is we are going to be doing a Patreon. I know we've talked about it before and I know we get a ton of DMs about it. And we're really excited to start one. It won't start until the first week of next year, so January, we're still working out a couple more details, but there will be a chance for extra

episodes. We figured let's get out of 2020 before we get into this. That way everything just goes right and not wrong. Exactly. Before we get into this episode, also, I just want to say thank you to all of our listeners. We have been receiving so many messages from you guys around the world and it is seriously insane. Africa, Israel, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Canada, and of course our US listeners and so many more. It is truly insane to us and we love you all so much

and we're so, so happy to have you here. Also, all the Spotify wraps that everyone was tagging us in, that was super super cool to see. Yeah, dang. I mean, I'm not judging you because I listened to podcasts all day long, but some of you were like 12, 13 episodes a day, and I was just like loving it because that's totally me. So it was awesome to see.

And sorry that this intro was a little bit longer than we usually do We just had some business we need to take care of and kind of update everyone on what was going on Yeah, but we'll jump right into it now Our case sources for this week are dig.com YouTube NBC News independent.co.uk the dodo.com ESA journals and that's it and I just want to give credit to a listener who sent in part of this story for our episode. This week her name is Brittany Olzac and she sent it in on Facebook. So thank you Brittany. Back in 1386.

Yes, you heard that correct. 1386. I like, okay, so I get online sometimes and try to watch YouTube videos of like events that have happened in the world because I still can't even, I took history class and I don't even know what 1386 looks like. And it's a long time ago. It's hard. But anyways, at this time, the human race did not know much really about anything. Now, I'm not saying we are all knowing creatures now, obviously we aren't, but we've definitely come farther than we were in the 1300s, right? So the time is 1386, and humans had been struggling with the study of animals, and just

how intelligent animals were. According to Laurel Braitman with dig.com, the distinction between humans and other animal species was particularly blurry. It was a popular belief at this time. The animals and other things besides humans were also rational beings and even able to tell the difference between right and wrong. So essentially in the 1300s, humans believed the animals were as smart as humans. So they had feelings, they knew the difference between right and wrong, all that kind of stuff. They might not talk, but they had their own language. Humans thought that they were sharing the planet with species who thought as complex as the human brain did.

This being said, animals way back at this time were held to the same standard as humans in some places on earth, which means if they broke the law, they were punished and able to stand trial just as a human because they should know better according to other humans. Weird. Extremely weird. I had no idea this was the thing and then I was googling it and it's insane. Like just history lesson after history lesson after history lesson about this. So one of the first documented animal trials was that of a French pig who was tried

and publicly executed for murder in 1386. What? So this pig killed a little boy. And back in this time, like pigs just wandered around freely, but like farmers own them, but they wandered around. And pigs are aggressive sometimes and they killed a little boy. And so they took the pig to trial, like literally had everyone there, they had testimony, they had everything, and then decided that the pig knew better and shouldn't have killed the little boy.

And so then they publicly executed the pig in front of everyone in their little square. I think it's just so strange that they didn't just kill the pig, but they put it on trial. Oh yeah, well because they think that the pig knows better. They think the pig is just as smart as humans. Other animals at this time were convicted

of having sexual relations with men which just think about that for a minute and what that actually means. They put an animal on trial for having a sexual relation with a human as if the animal knew better than the human. Animals sentenced to death for laying their eggs in inappropriate places and rodents who stole food were guilty and put on trial. It's like a movie. In 1647, a man named Thomas was almost hanged when a pig had piglets who, and I quote,

looked like him. So the science wasn't far enough long that they've they they thought if a human had intercourse with an animal, they could still have baby animals and it would be part. It could have human DNA. So the piglets had similar features to human Thomas. He wasn't hang though because the courts couldn't prove that those were his babies, piglets. Okay. In 1647.

Yes, this whole thing's weird. So here's the problem. Besides those amazing dogs who use those buttons to communicate with their owners and your typical wine, growl, or yelp from an animal, they really don't communicate with humans. And we know that now. They really don't know the difference

between right and wrong. And they are. Like dogs do sometimes. When they're trained, right? Yes, yes, yes. So they are amazing creatures. Yes. And actually I do believe like sometimes they are more advanced than some humans probably. But scientists have proven that humans so far are the most complex creature on earth. And any other creature would not be held to the same standard as humans. Okay. So time went on and we were like, Oh, yeah,

no animals definitely are not as complex as us. But there is one creature. One creature who communicates far better with humans than any other creature. I'm trying to think, but I don't know if I have any idea. I would say, I mean, I was gonna say dogs, but I think I was gonna say like I was gonna say like a monkey or gorilla Yes, because they're similar to us, but I'm talking communicates. Oh like a bird like the one the On a peacock gosh a parrot a parrot. Yeah, a parrot. I knew it started to pee It's a parrot. Wow unlike others parrots can mimic our language and have even learned to use it to communicate with humans.

So, yes, can monkeys like sign and can monkeys do things that are very human like, yes, but parrots are truly the only ones that have learned our language and have communicated with it. They really are making them the one species who can somewhat dance with us humans. So why this history lesson? Okay, yeah, obviously parrots can speak. You're all like Peyton, we knew that. Today we will be covering murders where parrots have solved the case.

No way. There's multiple. That is so cool. In same. So according to Adrian Burton with ESA journals on February 15th, 1874, a man named William was in severe debt, so he hatched a plan to go kill his well-to-do uncles who lived together in this nice house. William believed that his uncles had treasure in the house and this would solve all of his

problems. So he showed up, he kills both uncles, and then he kills their housekeeper named Mary. It was quite a gruesome attack. I won't go into detail, but he bludgeoned all three of them to death, which bludgeoning someone to death is like insane. Oh my gosh, and I'm sorry, what year are we ending in? 1874.

Okay. So unable to find the treasure that he saw after when he went to do this, William left with a couple hundred bucks. Which I think in 1874, is that like a lot of money? Yeah, actually, I feel like that would have been. But not what he was thinking. He probably thought he's gonna find

a treasure chest of gold or whatever. So police search for evidence, they get the call, they find these people and they're like, what the heck happened, but they find nothing. They just know that this has been a gruesome attack. Keep in mind, it's 1800s. It's not like they really have a lot to look for besides maybe footprints. But they eventually bring William to the house because he lives near the area to see if

he can see that anything was out of the norm at the house. Like, can you please come in and see if anything's been taken, anything's been moved, like since you're familiar with this house? And he's like, yeah. So he walks in and as he walks into the house, Mary, the housekeeper who he killed, her parrot, whose name is Captain Kid. That's so cool.

Literally starts cowering in his cage in the corner of the room and cries out, murder, murder, help, help. What? Says that. Is it because they were screaming murder, murder, help, help. What? Says that. Is it because they were screaming murder, murder, before they died? Yes.

Wow. So they bring William, they confront him. They're like, that was weird. So they bring him into the station, they confront him. They're like, okay, the parrot freaked out when you walked in the room. We've been in and out of this house and he hasn't said anything.

I know we just started this, but I feel like it would be so hard to be like, we trust that parrot over anybody. You know what I'm saying? This is like a huge part of this whole thing and you'll see when we get to later cases, is like, can they stand trial? Can you bring up her it?

To the stand and say, hey, what did you see and see what they say? Exactly. Are they admissible? You know, and then there's people who are like, they're not much different than children Yeah, because children are witnesses and crimes a lot and they don't really understand Especially younger children. They I mean they just repeat their parents anyways, right?

So there's a lot of people who argue that they aren't much different than bringing a child on to the stand But then there's judges out there who are like absolutely not there will not be a parrot on stand in my courtroom Oh my gosh, we need to get a parrot. I know so So anyways, Mary's parrot, Captain Kid, says murder, murder, help, help, please bring William in. And they discover after he confesses that Captain Kid had screamed the last words his owner, Mary, had yelled when William was bludgeoning her to death. So how do they prove that, though?

Like, how do we know it was those last words? Is that how a parrot always works or? No, so William confessed that that's what the parrot had said. That's what she was screaming and that, William told them, but what if the parrot had heard that on TV in modern day? What if you never, I mean, it's not strong evidence because it's not like the parrot can swear under oath. That's true. I mean, if we had a parrot and the police came to our house, it's not strong evidence because it's not like the parrot can swear under oath. That's true.

I mean, if we had a parrot and the police came to our house, it'd be yelling murder anyways. Because all you watch is CSI in law and order. So I'd be screwed no matter what. It'd be like DNA, yeah. Fingerprints. Seriously. Seriously, but no.

So William confesses that that's why the parrot had said that. So they put him away, whatever he cracks. And the parrot essentially solves that case. Okay. Case closed. Next, in California, in 1993, an African-Grey parrot named Max was considered for use as evidence

after he repeated the words, Richard, no, no, no, when his owner was murdered. I like that it's 1993, so his owner was murdered. I like that. It's 1993, so it's somewhat recent. Yeah, more recent. The police are like, he's the sole witness. He says, Richard, no, no, no, he keeps repeating that after his owner's death.

And police find a guy not named Richard and bring him to trial. And so the defense goes to the judge and says, can we bring his pet parrot on? Because the pet parrot is saying another name. And the judge is like, no, I don't trust parrots. They end up putting this other guy, not named Richard and gel for the murder. What?

Mm-hmm. Even though this parrot was saying Richard, no, no, no. So the guy probably didn't do it in his, do you know if he's still in jail? No, I don't know. I just know that he got put in jail and the judge was like, oh heck no. We're not doing a parrot in this courtroom. Oh man. So Richard's, I mean, okay, I'm acting like I trust parrots more than anything, but he

might be out there. Well, so what the judge argued is like he could have heard the name Richard on TV. He could have heard that sentence on, he could have heard that on the radio. He could have heard someone who came months ago and said that in the house. He's like, we're not for sure that that's necessarily his owners last words, which is what you were just saying. How do you prove that? Yeah. And unless the killer says, Oh, yeah, that's what he said, then we'll never know. Okay, got it. Okay, next. Case closed. Okay, you guys, we are getting into an ad.

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better help. H E L P dot calm slash husband. In 2010, a parrot sent 2010. Yes, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, a parrot sent a lady to gel after mimicking her owner's arguments in front of the police. The lady had been abusing her elderly mother and the parent cried to police, helped me help me and then followed it up with like a manic laugh. And just kept doing it over and over, helped me help me and then laugh. Okay. Police asserted that the help me police came from the abused mother begging for help and

the following laugh was from the abuser daughter laughing at her mother begging for help. Oh my gosh. That's horrible. Yeah. Insane. Parature basically cameras before their cameras. Camera. So literally though, I mean, I just can't even think that this, I mean, we saw more.

This many cases have been closed because of an animal. Wow. Okay. So is it getting more recent then? Yes. On February 20th in 2014. Oh my gosh. I'm getting a parrot.

Niela Sharma and her dog. Okay. And I just hate that part. Her dog. We're found dead in her home in Agra, India. The trail immediately went cold when detectives found no evidence of what happened. Neelam's husband came to police after a while

stating that their pet parrot named her Kule who had been in the room with Neelam when she had been murdered was becoming extremely agitated when their nephew came to visit. So his wife gets murdered in the room with the parrot. Then they come in, they find her, she's murdered, whatever they call the police. Then he calls the police a little while later and says, listen, this is weird, but every

single time our nephew comes over after the murder, our parrot becomes extremely agitated. Which, there's probably no difference if, like a dog solid, they would do the same thing, they would cower and... And I will preface their head. There has been a couple dogs who have helped solve a crime, just not using English, like the English language. I mean, there's canine units, there's beagles,

there's so many different methods. So there are other animals who obviously do help solve crimes. They just don't use language to do it. They use their talents instead. Neelums has been states that he would bring his nephew up in conversation to the parrot after he started noticing the parrot act weird and that hercule the parrot would begin screaming in his cage whenever he'd mention the nephew because the parent knows who the people are. Police decide to trust the parrot and they bring Neilum's nephew in for questioning on

nothing other than the fact that this parrot freaks out when the nephew walks in. That's the only evidence they had. And when they're interviewing him in 2014, he breaks down and admits to killing his aunt while he was attempting to rob their home. Wow. And the only reason they brought him in was because of this flip in parrot. So I assume parrots are more trusted now than we might guess. I mean, it seems to me that not, I mean, besides that one that's like Richard, no, no, no. What if he was right? And we just didn't listen to him. Yeah. maybe they're not that wrong. And I mean, there are studies like parrots will just, they have emotion.

And so they say things that maybe aren't true. You know, you hear of parrots who like swear a lot because for whatever reason. I mean, a lot of these, most of these have been true and they've literally been solidified by the killer himself. So I wonder if any of our listeners have a parrot? Please let us know. I don't even think of that. Yeah, I'm actually really curious.

If you have a parrot, please message us on Instagram or email us. And I know we have a couple like animal veterinarians who follow us and have message me and stuff. So if you know anything about parrots either, please, please, okay, I know, Garrett and I could go Google this stuff, but it's way, way more cool when you guys message us about it. I can't even explain it.

So next, that's that case, case closed, Hercules solved that case. On May 12, 2015, Glena and Martin Durham are found shot in their Michigan home. In this case, you could find this on the today show, on People magazine, you can find it's very popular. Martin is dead. They're married. Glena was shot and injured. Police bring Glena to the hospital and head back to the scene of the crime to gather evidence.

Martin's parrot named Bud, who was in the room when all this was happening, is still in his cage inside the house. Police collect him, and they send him to Martin's ex-wife, who will take care of him. Okay. Martin's ex-wife is frightened when several weeks after the murder, Bud started repeating a conversation over and over

while staying with her. Do you know how much they can remember or repeat? Did it say anything about that? Yeah, so they said they can repeat stuff from years ago. So I mean, as far as, okay, so like could they repeat like a whole page of like a book I'm saying, or do you know like the, I guess word count?

Is there a word count? Yeah, so I actually don't know that, but I do know that this parrot recited a lot a whole conversation. Okay, and I don't think it's necessarily like always in order But he just repeats phrases of the conversation over and over again And I'm actually going we are going to insert the parrot Speaking this conversation because this one has a video they took video the the X wife

He would say all the time, so one day when he started saying it, she videoed him doing it. Okay. And so we will insert that video and let it play here. Okay. No! Get your ass in there now!

Get your ass in there now! No! No! Shut up, later! Get your ass in there! No! No! Get your ass in there now! Get yourking idiot! You! No! Why don't you find out what you f**king idiot is doing?

You f**king idiot! The impressive thing about bud, this parrot, is he's an African-Grey parrot, which would another parrot we talked about was also an African-Grey parrot. And these parrots are known for their ability to not only mimic words and phrases, but also do it in the same tone or voice in which they heard it. So because Bud had lived with Martin, he had already mastered Martin's voice. So whenever he would say things that Martin had said, he said it in his exact voice. Okay. And that's like their special talent. Bud seemed to be mimicking both Martin and Glenna, his wife, who's alive and in the hospital. His repetitive conversation starts

with what sounds like an argument between the two. And keep in mind, Glenna was shot in the head and survived. Bud makes some chaotic noises and then what appears to be Martin saying and the crazy thing is you'll hear it, but he Changes octaves. It goes from what sounds like a girl's voice to what sounds like a boys voice Okay, and he starts by Martin who they're assuming is Martin saying no shut up and then there's some more noise But then he says get your f-ing something that we can't really tell what he says and then over here and now And then it ends with the most chilling sentence of all Martin screaming don't f-ing shoot

Oh my God. And then he just starts over. The parrot just starts over restating all things. Just the same thing over. Just like it sounds like what he's mimicking is like arguments and then he'll say some like audible words which are what I just read you. That's so crazy because you start to come with pictures in your mind of what could have happened.

And he's going back and forth between high pitched to low, high pitched to low. Bads insane So turns out like when they all this comes to fruition and cops go to Glenn and go it sounds like you guys are having an argument It doesn't sound like what you said was some intruder came in and shot both of you sounds like you two were arguing Turns out Glenn a headshot Martin Five times and then attempted to shoot herself in what would be a murder suicide, but failed. She saw herself in the head and survived.

That's so that's like I don't I don't know to say because I was going to say it's so unlucky, but I don't like that word because she tried to kill kill someone. Yeah, she killed someone, but she tried to kill herself and it didn't work. Yes. And not only did it not work, their parent literally threw them under the bus, but because before that police were, why did they, what reason did they have to not believe that an intruder had come in? Like she had been shot in the head. And then afterwards she was like, no, I didn't, like an intruder came in and shot me. So interesting. I do know though, if we do get a parrot and something happens to one of us, someone's got to get rid of that parrot. Okay.

Yeah. That's going to be on our listeners, our listeners job. Yeah. So according to Kenza Brian with independent.com, Glenaduram was found guilty of first degree murder by the Nuwaga County jury in Michigan. But the parrot was not used inside the actual courtroom because they discovered they couldn't put him up on the like they couldn't bring him in in his cage and get him to repeat it in front of

the jury. There was nothing that like triggered him to say it. Even when he got around, even when he got around Glennah, Glennah, yeah. So they he would just randomly do it. So instead, they took his video, with his testimony on video, essentially, that the ex-wife had taken and took that into consideration. Okay. But essentially, police credit,

this parrot for solving this crime. And this was just in 2015. Wow, that's, I mean, that's recent. Yeah. And so these are just some of the stories of parrots literally saving the day. It's insane. And like I said, you can get on and type in like pets, solving crimes, and there are so many. So if you're interested in this, I would highly, highly suggest you do it.

So for those of you out there who have a security system like we do or have taken self-defense classes, but still feel unsafe, I would suggest maybe trying to parrots. Get a parrot. They seem to be smart and know what they're doing. I just want to remind everyone again about the giveaway, go enter on our Instagram, we're super, super excited about it. And this episode, I mean it was a little different than our other ones. Yeah. But it was still fun and it was still awesome. But I know you were talking about we might have some long ones next week or something. Yeah. So our next week or something.

Yeah, so our next week's episode are going to take a lot of time for me to research, but it will definitely be worth it. It's going to be a more in-depth story. It was sent in, and I'm really excited for you guys to hear it. It has all the details you're wanting. It just took a little bit longer for me to research, so stay tuned for that. And hopefully when we get that Patreon set up next year that those extra episodes will be good. Oh, well they were okay. They will be. I'm really excited for that. It's something we've been wanting to do. It's something you guys have been asking for. We just, you know, have to keep growing and all of that.

But it's kind of exciting because I feel like once you take the step of making a Patreon, it just kind of confirms that we have been growing and we're so grateful for all of you guys for being here because without you we don't have a Patreon. So we are just so so excited for that. And can I just say thank goodness for pets. We will see you guys next week. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. for automatic energy savings. Plus free energy on the hottest day. Don't you see it? Free days are now the coolest day. In this summer's hottest flux cluster, guaranteed to keep you cool.

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