Hercule Parrot solves murder mystery by telling editor who killed his wife

An Indian journalist managed to catch the person that killed his wife after getting a tip off – from her pet parrot.

Vijay Sharma, the editor of a Hindi daily newspaper in Agra (The Swarajya Times) in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in India returned home to find both his wife Neelam Sharma, 45, and her pet dog, had been murdered.

According to Central European News, the only survivor of the brutal robbery was Hercule the pet parrot, and he was stunned into silence and according to Vijay had clearly been shocked by what he had seen.

The house had also been ransacked and jewellery and cash stolen. Police were baffled as to the identity of the killers and it seemed as if there were no obvious leads.

But that changed when Vijay's nephew Ashutosh visited their house after the murder.

He said: "The parrot that was unusually quiet suddenly started shrieking and flapping around the cage. It was clearly distressed about something and only calmed down when Ashutosh left.

"Then when I spoke to other people, every time I mentioned Ashutosh's name the parrot would start screeching. This made me really suspicious and I decided to call the police."

Police spokesman in Agra Shalabh Mathur said after being alerted that the nephew might be a suspect they had looked to his phone records which would strengthen their suspicions – and then hauled him in for an interrogation during which he confessed.

"He said that he had gone together with a friend to his uncle's house with the intent of stealing and have been surprised by his aunt, who they had killed because they were worried she would have identified them to police. They had then robbed the place before fleeing.

"He admitted he had also killed the dog worried that it could be used in an identity parade against him, but had not thought about killing the parrot which had been silently in its cage."