Thirty-five thousand pounds of chicken rots at the Wye after a ransom goes bad.

Missoula county sheriff's officials say a man driving a tractor-trailer carrying $80,000 worth of frozen chicken wouldn't finish the drop off until he got some money.

Missoula city-county health officials hope to clear the mess in a day or two.

"It doesn't seem like it was really well planned out," said Paige Pavalone, the spokeswoman for the Missoula County Sheriff's Office.

It's not a typical kidnapping. The driver came from Nampa, Idaho making a delivery for Dixie River Freight. Pavalone says the truck was reported stolen about a month ago.

"This is pretty unusual, not only is it disgusting, but it's a huge waste of food and resources and this is a huge felony theft case right now," said Pavalone.

Now the health department has to figure out a way to get the rotten meat to the landfill. They're working with Dixie River Freight's insurance company. It looks like the best plan now is to wrap and plug up the trailer and take the chicken to the dump in its original casing.

"You want to get rid of that potential for there to be pests flying around, disease vectors, the flies, but in and of itself it's not a hazardous material," explained Shannon Therriault, the environmental health supervisor for the Missoula City-County Health Department.

The other question is what to do with the truck. It's hard to toss something worth tens of thousands of dollars in the garbage, but it will take a lot of work to get it back in working order, even if it's not used for food anymore. The decision is up to the insurance company.

"I don't think… it'll be up to them whether they want to bury the whole truck, but I don't think that's what they're planning to do," said Therriault.

ABC Fox Montana made several calls to Dixie River Freight, and the owner said he knew nothing about this and he had no comment.

The case is in the hands of Nampa police, according to Pavalone.