5 Times the Jig Was Up Because the Parrot Squawked

Most of our feathered friends can sing, but only a few can talk. And if those talkers witness something naughty, they might just tell on you.

1. SUSPICIOUS SWEET TALKING

A woman in Kuwait, where adultery is illegal, had been suspicious for some time that her husband was carrying on an affair with their housekeeper. There were little signs, like when she returned home from work early and noticed that he seemed nervous. But it was when the family parrot squawked unfamiliar sweet nothings that she decided to take her suspicions to the police. If her husband wasn’t saying those things to her, how was the parrot learning them? However, because it could not be proven that the parrot hadn’t heard the phrases from a steamy TV show, the bird's evidence was deemed inadmissible.

2. THAT'S NOT MY NAME

In another case of infidelity revealed with a squawk, a man was surprised to hear his beloved African Grey parrot Ziggy say, “Hiya Gary!” when his live-in girlfriend’s phone rang, because his name was not Gary. After he heard the parrot say, “I love you, Gary,” and make kissing sounds when the name Gary was said on TV, he confronted his girlfriend, who admitted she was having an affair with Gary. Not only did he lose his girlfriend, but when the parrot continued to chatter on about Gary in her voice, the man was forced to give his pet up too.

3. THE AWFUL LAST LAUGH

Even when other evidence is already damning, a parrot can add an extra sinister twist to a crime investigation. When an elderly woman was found in a filthy South Carolina home, covered in bedsores and near death, her daughter was charged with elder abuse and neglect (her mother died the next day). The police noted that a parrot in the house repeatedly cried for help and then laughed. They believe it was mimicking the interaction between the mother and daughter: the mother pleading for help and the daughter laughing.

4. REPLAYING THE LAST WORDS

After a Michigan man was found shot to death in his home, his parrot kept repeating a dialogue, alternating between a man and woman’s voice, that went: “Get out.” “Where will I go?” “Don’t f***ing shoot!” His wife—who police believe tried to kill herself but did not succeed—was charged with his murder and was convicted in 2017.

5. GIVING THE CRIMINAL AWAY

Tales of parrots giving the criminal away go back to the 19th century, when the leader of a Paris crime syndicate who went by Victor Chevalier escaped with his beloved parrot from the residence he shared with his wife Marie before the cops descended on him. When an officer was called to another residence for a seemingly unrelated search, he heard as he walked in, a parrot cry out “Totor! Riri!” which happened to be the pet names of Victor and Marie. The discovery of the parrot eventually led to the capture of Victor.

This piece originally ran in 2016.