A firefighter in suburban Boston is accused of fatally poisoning his neighbor's chickens because the noise was apparently too great for him and his family to sleep.
Frank Sargent, 66, of Carlisle admitted he
fed the chickens food laced with rat poison, The Lowell Sun reported. He was recorded delivering the poison to his neighbor’s back yard chicken coop late at night between April and July.
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The newspaper said 10 hens and one rooster died.
Sargent is a 17-year veteran of the Carlisle Fire Department and owns a general-contracting business. He was placed on administrative leave from the fire department after his arrest.
Sargent reportedly first denied the allegations, but later admitted he poisoned the chickens after seeing the video and photographs.
"I couldn't sleep. I couldn't take it anymore," Sargent said, according to the police report obtained by the Lowell Sun. "I did what you said: I mixed mouse poison with bird seed and ... brought it over in a bucket and just threw it in (the chicken coop)."
He also admitted to dousing the chicken coop with insect spray.
"I know it sounds crazy, but I got to the point where I thought the bird was mocking me. So I sprayed it with hornet spray just to make it stop," Sargent said.
During the two-and-a-half years the chickens were in his neighbor’s back yard, Sargent contacted the town's Board of Health several times, and called Carlisle police repeatedly to make noise complaints, The Lowell Sun reported.
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