New York’s Grand Dame of Dog Poisoning
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In a ritzy Park Avenue apartment, Juliet Tuttle posed in front of a birdcage, staring into the eyes of a parrot. She wore an elegant silk robe and a cloche hat. A photographer snapped a picture, and soon Tuttle appeared in newspapers around the country under the headline “Not Afraid of Parrot Disease.”
The year was 1930 and a panic had erupted over an illness spread by birds. Though only a few hundred Americans had caught the flu-like “parrot fever,” people were so afraid of being infected that they wrung the necks of their own pets. Tiny carcasses piled up in trash cans, the brilliant blue-and-green wings lying limp among the coal ash.
Tuttle insisted that the fears of contagion were overblown, saying that she often kissed her birds on their little beak. She seemed like the kind of daffy, kind-hearted widow who would one day leave her fortune to her menagerie. And yet seven years later, a tabloid dubbed her the “Eastchester Dog Poisoner” after she was caught in a New York suburb doling out suspicious tablets in doggie treats.
When I stumbled across an old newspaper item about Tuttle’s trial, I was drawn in by the paradox: Tuttle had been a well-known advocate for animals. Why would she have killed dogs in such a gruesome fashion? Eventually, I pieced together clues that had remained hidden for almost 100 years. And that’s how I learned that Juliet Tuttle may have been the most prolific pet killer in this country’s history, an angel of death who not only poisoned dogs but also hunted cats through the streets of New York City, bagging them up and snuffing them out.
Athe Bowen Road Dog Poisoner is stalking the parks of Hong Kong, scattering —the mysterious of dogs that have died in agony. And in Melbourne, dog owners were recently to keep their animals inside because of a rash of poisonings.
