Ira Glass Act Two, "Murder Most Foul." OK, here's a crazy fact. The number of wild turkeys in America has grown from-- get this-- 30,000 turkeys at the beginning of the 20th century, to 1.3 million turkeys in the 1970s, to about 7 million turkeys today. Seven million wild turkeys roaming all over the country in every state but Alaska, turkeys that, if you believe videos you see on YouTube, could possibly do this to you.

Youtube Turkey Victim It's pecking the car. It's pissed. It is attacking the car. It wants in here really bad. It's making weird noises. Oh, [BLEEP] get out of here! Oh my gosh.

Ira Glass There are lots of videos like this on the web, of wild turkeys attacking people in residential neighborhoods. And they've been making the local news more lately too. You may have seen this footage that's gone around of this reporter in Sacramento who went to verify reports of a rogue turkey and then got attacked herself.

Sacramento Reporter No. Go away. Oh, Jesus Christ. No!

Ira Glass But none of these turkeys come even close to one bird, one bird who unleashed a reign of terror on Martha's Vineyard in 2008. Sam Bungey was a reporter on the island when it all went down.

Sam Bungey It was Father's Day around noon, and two things were true on Old Ridge Road in the tiny town of Chilmark-- first, it was Tom the Turkey's last day on Earth. Second, he was not going quietly. Alissa Keenan runs a business that specializes in rental baby equipment-- cribs, and high chairs, and things like that for families on vacation on Martha's Vineyard. And on that Father's Day, she and one of her drivers pulled up at a summer house on the road to make a delivery. They noticed a turkey in the yard but thought nothing of it. Wild turkeys run all over the island. The driver got out and a second later, Alissa heard shouts.

Alissa Keenan And then I heard rocks flying and hitting the side of the van. And then he came screaming in saying, that crazy turkey's attacking. So I got out and I flapped my arms and said, shoo, like you do to the seagulls at the dump and they fly away. And the turkey came at me.

Sam Bungey It was big, nearly up to her waist. Alissa told my producer, Bryan Ried, and me that she's seen hundreds of wild turkeys and they always run away when you go near them. This one kept rushing her.

Alissa Keenan And it was pecking with its face, pecking at me. And then we got back in the van, and it was circling the van.

Sam Bungey So you were besieged in the van, basically.

Alissa Keenan Yes. We were besieged in the van by a turkey.

Sheriff's Department Phone Operator Sheriff's Department Communications. This line is recording.

Alissa Keenan Hi. I'm just calling to let you know there is a turkey here that is attacking us. I'm with my driver and he chased us around the van. I've never seen a turkey come after anybody like that. And the people that are coming here have little kids. I don't know if it has rabies or something. But it's definitely not behaving like any of the turkeys I've ever seen.

Sam Bungey Alissa made the emergency call, she says, not for herself but for the children that would be using this rental gear. At the time, she didn't know that birds can't get rabies. She and the driver dropped the baby equipment out the van window and drove away. A half hour later, officers Matt Gebo and Jeff Day rolled up in separate patrol cars. It was a strange scene-- a bunch of beach chairs and strollers and umbrellas lying in a pile. When Gebo stepped out of his cruiser, the turkey charged him. Both officers filed multi-page reports about what happened next. "Due to the wild turkey's aggression," Gebo wrote, "I jumped up onto the cruiser's push bumper for protection." From the bumper, Gebo watched as the turkey pursued his partner. It was fast. It got within a few feet and jumped the policemen. casting about for cover, Officer Day, who is about 6 feet tall and in good shape, ran for the baby equipment. "The turkey chased me around a pile of chairs three times trying to peck me with its beak," Day wrote in his report. "I then kicked it with my boot. It backed up and then charged me again." Day unclipped the holster of his service weapon, a .40 caliber semi-automatic Glock pistol, and leveled his gun at the oncoming turkey. He backed up one more time around the baby equipment and then squeezed off two bullets. The turkey was wounded, but still it kept running. "I pursued the bird on foot," Day wrote. And then he fired twice more.

Linda We were outside. I was working in the yard and Jonathan was in the garage, and we heard gunshots.

Sam Bungey This is Linda, who lives next door with her husband, Jonathan. They didn't want us to use their last name, which makes sense given everything that happened next. Linda and Jonathan knew this turkey, cared a lot for this turkey, actually. It wasn't exactly their pet. But he used to hang around in their yard a lot. And they had named him Tom.

Linda Instinctively, we just started running over, which was a stupid thing to do. When you hear gunshots, you don't run toward them. But we just panicked. And we saw them pulling this very bloody turkey out of our woods.

Jonathan I don't want to go into the details of my interaction with the police officers. The long and the short of it is, I tried to get between my wife and the shooters.

Sam Bungey Jonathan wouldn't tell me much about what happened next. But in a sworn affidavit, he later said, quote, "I was running as fast as I could through the woods, ducking bushes in a panic and flushed with adrenaline, as two of the gunshots were so close that I could see the muzzle flash." The police say there were a total of four shots fired into the turkey, but Jonathan says it was five. He then saw Officer Day holding the turkey by its neck and laughing, saying, it's done. According to the police, Jonathan was swearing blue murder. "What the [BLEEP] are you [BLEEP] doing?" He shouted. "This is the Chilmark Police and we're taking care of a problem turkey," said Officer Day. Jonathan yelled back, "What are you, an idiot? Stop shooting my turkeys, you [BLEEP] idiots." And then he punched Officer Gebo in the face. According to Linda, it was the police who were being rough with her husband, so she ran to the house and called 9-1-1.

9-1-1 Operator 9-1-1. This is the Sheriff's Department. This line is recorded, what is your emergency?

Linda Yes, I need the state police right away.

9-1-1 Operator Why do you need the state police?

Linda Because the local police are up here shooting our turkeys and they've got my husband tied up.

9-1-1 Operator The police have your husband tied up?

Linda Yes, they have him handcuffed because he was trying to get them to stop shooting our turkeys. They killed the turkeys. They're over here killing turkeys-- the local police. I need the state police right away.

Sam Bungey The state troopers came, but it was too late. The Chilmark Police cuffed Jonathan, read him his rights, and took him to jail. He was charged with resisting arrest and two counts of assault and battery of a police officer. Tom the Turkey, riddled with bullets, was bundled into a plastic bag as evidence and stowed in the police department freezer. Just to back up here, before he grew up to attack delivery people and police, Tom was small and cute and fuzzy and an orphan. That's the Tom that Jonathan and Linda first met back in the spring of 2006. Their house is surrounded by lots of fields and woods with a pond. And one day they were watching a brood of wild turkeys that had wandered into their yard when they saw a red-tailed hawk swoop down and try and pick off Tom and his sister. Jonathan and Linda are animal lovers. They've raised dogs and slugs and lizards. And Jonathan once spent two years on a campaign to domesticate a feral cat. So when they saw the injured baby turkeys, Jonathan says it was hard not to help.

Jonathan They had cuts on their faces. And we fixed them up and put antibiotic on his little face. And they still were very attached to us, I guess, for this.

Sam Bungey So as Tom grew up, he liked to come and hang out. He'd wander off for a couple of days. But he would always come back. He and Jonathan got on really well.

Jonathan He'd just sit there and do his thing where he'd gobble around. And if I dropped any birdseed going out to the birdfeeder, he'd scour that. He'd go in the garage, clean that out. And he used to love shiny things. And whenever I'd be working on anything, you'd find him dragging a wrench down the driveway. It's like, where are you going with this?

Sam Bungey When news of Tom's murder hit the local papers, I was living on the island. And I can tell you, everyone went crazy over this story, couldn't get enough of it. How in the world did this happen, that gunshots were fired in Chilmark of all places-- a sleepy town where alcohol sales are outlawed and people leave their keys in the ignition, a place where the cops have enough free time that they once responded, with success, to a call about a kid with a blueberry stuck up his nose? The case was discussed in coffee shops and in bars, where people joked about that season's special drink-- four shots of Wild Turkey, or five, depending on whose account you believed. Letters and comments streamed into the local newspapers, some asking serious questions about what the cops did. But in most you could hear the snickering. Just the idea of a turkey attacking seemed ridiculous. A reader warned parents against letting their kids dress as turkeys for Halloween, lest they incur the wrath of the Chilmark P.D. One paper ran an editorial cartoon of a dopey-looking turkey in a cop's uniform carrying a rifle. This might be one reason why the police officers, even three years later, wouldn't talk to us for this story. A guy named Chip posted this comment in the Martha's Vineyard Times, "Did anyone think of simply getting back into their vehicles until the turkey no longer felt threatened? I'm sure it would have gone back to whatever turkeys do if left alone for five or ten minutes. Or did this turkey have a long list of priors that made him particularly scary?" Well, as it turns out Chip, yeah, he did-- a surprisingly long list of priors.

Blue Cullen I was totally relieved, totally relieved that the turkey was dead-- definitely singing choruses of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead," yeah.

Brian Mackey I don't personally know the police. But I said to myself, if I had a gun, I would have shot the turkey.

Chilmark Resident 2 I think I can honestly say that we all, on this road, were glad to see him gone permanently.

Chilmark Resident 3 It was just a relentless freakin' bird.

Sam Bungey Those times when Tom wasn't at Jonathan's, according to neighbors, he'd been stalking them for months. And like any serial criminal, he had patterns, signatures. The first recorded sighting was on, of all days, Thanksgiving. An entire flock arrived on Roger Greeley's lawn. Suddenly, they flew up onto his porch and then marched across it, single file, led by Tom. Before he died in 2009, Roger told me it was like trying to shoo away kindergartners. They were dumb as rocks. But it all seemed so innocent at the beginning. Soon, Tom started showing up at Blue Cullen's house.

Blue Cullen He would come chasing up to you as if he were going to peck you. He was really scary. And he just would keep coming at you. So I took to walking from my front door to my car, anytime I had to go out, with a broom. And at times I would just laugh at myself because I thought, if anybody just saw me chasing after this turkey with a broom, I would just look like a total madwoman.

Stephanie Derosa My reoccurring nightmares is that I'm being chased by something, right? So all of a sudden, you have a turkey who really is bringing that to life.

Sam Bungey Blue's niece, Stephanie DeRosa, lives one door down. Her primary battleground lay on the small stretch between her house and her car, where Tom would come after her.

Stephanie Derosa I honestly ran in and got in through my passenger door, because that's what was closest to the house door, ran into the passenger door to get into the driver's seat to drive away.

Sam Bungey Tom seemed to have a particular fetish for cars. Victim after victim told me stories of Tom hurling himself against vehicles, circling them maniacally, or staring down revving engines. Terrifyingly, he could keep pace with a car for the length of a city block. Stephanie remembers one time--

Stephanie Derosa I got into the car, and he was coming at the car. Coming at my car. I had paint chipped off of my car from this turkey. Yeah, it's terrorizing. It's a living nightmare.

Sam Bungey As the attacks continued, people adapted to the new regime. They learned to recognize the sound of Tom's low-slung wings scraping the gravel driveway. Some parked as close as possible to the front door to shorten the route between the car and the safety of their house. One man escorted his guesthouse tenants on walks and to their cars. After kicking and swatting, people tried defending themselves with brooms, rakes, garden hoses, golf clubs, baseball bats. A plumber had nothing on him but a hot soldering iron when Tom attacked. He wouldn't talk to us about it on tape, but he claims to have made contact and smelled cooked turkey. The absurdity of it all wasn't lost on anyone. Brian Mackey, a financial director at the island's YMCA, tried to shoo away Tom with a broom and was backed 30 feet across his own yard, walking backwards, trying not to break into a run, until he knocked into a short, stone wall that he didn't see.

Brian Mackey And I hit this wall and I went down--

Sam Bungey He's in his yard showing us where it happened.

Brian Mackey And I'm just laying here with the broom. And it's going like-- I'm saying, what the hell is--

Sam Bungey You're lying on the ground right now.

Brian Mackey And I said, go away. You're a turkey. What are you doing here? You're not supposed to do this to me. This is my house. Get out of here. If it were a person, you could talk to it. This was a turkey.

Sam Bungey Brian told me he used to yell at Tom again and again asking, what do you want? What do you want? To make things worse, Tom didn't act alone. According to his victims, he had an entire rogue flock at his disposal. He seemed to have the whole group bent to his will. And they would surround people while he attacked. An electrician told me he was engulfed by a sea of nearly 40 turkeys, with Tom at the helm, who trapped him in his van. The flock singled out a woman named Debbie Morelli for special treatment. Her house is close to Jonathan and Linda's, the couple that was treating Tom like a pet. The turkeys patrolled Debbie's property day and night. They'd roost in her trees, defecate in her yard and in the outdoor shower. They'd stomp around on the roof. One night, a turkey toppled into her chimney. She had to listen to it struggle and die in there. Even today, three years later, as we were asking her about Tom, she threw her head down on the table.

Debbie Morelli I really didn't like him.

Sam Bungey Kevin Oliver is a caretaker for a bunch of summer homes on the island. One day, he got out of his car to check on one of the houses and there they were, Tom and his flock. He says it seemed like they were waiting for him.

Kevin Oliver And usually, when you come to a flock of turkeys, they run away. This group of turkeys ran towards me, so I made a bolt for the front door. And as I'm running towards the house, I finally realize that I have a handful of keys in my hand and I don't know which one belongs to the house. So I start scrambling with the keys. And as I'm doing that, the turkeys are closing in rapidly. It was just that classic horror scene where you're sitting there fumbling with the keys as creature's creeping up behind you. I finally got the right key in the door. And as I slipped in the door, the turkey's head literally came through the opening in the door.

Sam Bungey Tom lunged at him, snapping with his beak. If he'd slammed the door shut, Kevin could have ended things right there. But instead, he kicked Tom's head out and closed the door. The turkey then held him hostage in the house until Kevin grabbed a golf club and swung his way to the car.

Sam Bungey What did you think he was going to do to you if he caught you?

Kevin Oliver Same thing I saw him do to somebody else, spur me. They have those big spurs out on the backside of their legs. And he was a big turkey. It was a big, nasty, testosterone-filled turkey.

Sam Bungey The attacks went on for more than six months, sometimes several times a week. Some neighbors suffered in silence, assuming they were the only ones dealing with this crazed bird. Others tried asking for help, but they had a hard time getting people to take them seriously. The chief of police said the birds weren't under his jurisdiction, same with the environmental police officer and the animal control guy, whose specialty is dogs. A few people even contacted hunters, trying to organize a contract on Tom. But no one bit. Wild turkeys are protected animals. And back in 2008, even if you had a permit, you could only hunt them for fewer than three weeks out of the year. So lots of people found themselves in a pickle, which is why they were so relieved when those delivery people called 9-1-1 and the police finally shot him. Not only because it rid them of the bird, but also because it was proof that they hadn't imagined the whole thing. Here's Blue Cullen, the women who used to chase Tom with a broom.

Blue Cullen If those people didn't have the fortitude to deal with that situation and the police literally had to shoot this bird, then I felt like, OK, maybe my anger wasn't as misplaced. If it can get to people like that too, then I'm not as cuckoo as I think I am.

Sam Bungey Why did Tom turn out this way? How did he end up attacking humans? A wildlife expert on the island speculated maybe Jonathan and Linda fed him so often that he lost his fear of people and became territorial. When he saw people in the neighborhood, especially new people, he viewed them as a threat. This expert said, that's why people should never feed wild turkeys. You're creating a monster, he said, when you start hand-feeding these animals. It's difficult to square Jonathan and Linda's description of Tom with the bird that brought an entire neighborhood to its knees. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective. Jonathan told us how Tom used to chase the UPS van. He remembered it fondly, like it was a cute game Tom and the delivery man would play together. But I spoke to that UPS guy. He wouldn't go on the record about it. But he said that turkey scared the crap out of him. But isn't that often the way with the parents of a local bully? To everyone else, he's a thug. But to mom and dad, he's a high-spirited little angel, a fluffy, injured orphan misunderstood by the world.

Linda I felt badly for him because he had been injured and he seemed to come over to our field a lot more than some of the other turkeys.

Jonathan And he did come back a few times with yellow paint on his face because he had been shot by someone with a paintball gun. And I guess he sort of realized that this was the place to come to when something happened.

Sam Bungey One of the first things Linda did as her husband was being released from jail that day was call the island's emergency services number and ask for them to return Tom's body. The dispatcher was perfectly polite to Linda.

Dispatcher OK, I'll see if I can get ahold of Matt and call you.

Sam Bungey But then the dispatcher calls the animal control officer. And in the recording of that call, you can tell how absurd she thinks the whole thing is. It's almost like they forgot they were being recorded.

Animal Control Hi, this is the Chilmark Turkey Patrol reporting in. You called me?

Dispatcher You're not going to believe it. You haven't started dressing it yet, have you?

Animal Control I did not dress it. It is in a bag in the freezer with a Chilmark P.D. label on it.

Dispatcher Because Miss [BLEEP] wants her turkey to give it a proper burial.

Sam Bungey He tells her the police are keeping the turkey on lockdown as potential evidence.

Dispatcher I can't wait to read about this.

Animal Control Hopefully you won't read it. I'm not part of it. This is not how I deal with turkeys.

Dispatcher Never-- are they odd? Is it strange?

Animal Control I don't know. Don't know.

Dispatcher It piques my interest when somebody wants their turkey back to give it a proper burial.

Animal Control That's right, well. It's not going anywhere. It's safely tagged and in our freezer.

Sam Bungey Half a year went by. After $30,000 in legal fees, all the charges against Jonathan were dropped-- assault and battery of a police officer and resisting arrest, each of which could have gotten him two and a half years in jail. And then, Jonathan says, one day the Chilmark P.D. called about Tom.

Jonathan The police had kept him for the whole six months of the appeal. And by that point, he was rather freezer burned. So this tiny little bag of this, apparently ferocious, turkey came back to us. And we buried him. And he has a headstone. I thought you'd like to know what is written on it. It's a little rock and it has a little brass plaque. And it says, "Tom the Turkey. He died as he lived." What more can you say for a wild animal?

Sam Bungey In Jonathan, Tom had found the one guy in the woods who was in his corner, who tried to understand him on his own terms. To almost everyone else, Tom was a thug and a tough one-- gored by a hawk, pelted with paintballs, burned with a soldering iron. None of that stopped him. When Tom finally did go down, it was like Scarface in a barrage of gunfire. He lived like a bird. But he died like a gangster.