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Banana, Parakeet Get Starring Roles In Murder Trial

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Across the river, David Henry is on trial, charged with murdering his wife. He’s accused of strangling her, but told paramedics she had collapsed and hit her neck on a parakeet cage, apparently not knowing that the medical examiner can check these things and figure out she died of strangulation. (Apparently Henry has never watched Law & Order.)

The prosecution says Henry had also hidden his homosexuality from pretty much everyone, though he took three-week vacations to other countries to meet men. Oh, also, he’s completely bonkers.

And at this wife’s viewing — in a place of honor — sat the couple’s pet parakeet, whose cage was adjacent to the casket of Jacquelin Henry…. In the statement to [investigator Martin] Wolf, David Henry said he had dinner by himself hours earlier because his wife was working her second job as a cashier. He shared a banana with the couple’s pet parakeet, bathed, and put on his pajamas, he told Wolf. [...]

Also Wednesday, David Henry’s supervisor at a Department of the Navy supply center in Philadelphia, said he was stunned when David Henry asked him at his wife’s viewing about collecting on a $15,000 life insurance policy on his wife.

“He asked if I could come to the funeral the next day because he had paperwork to give me about life insurance. I did not go to the funeral,” said Brian Excell of Southampton, Pa.

That must be one super parakeet.

Murder trial hears of parakeet, paramours [Camden Courier-Post]