Wild turkey tale ruffles neighbors

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.

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.

Douglas Belkin can be reached at dbelkin@globe.com.