Mass. firefighter poisoned neighbors chickens for 'mocking' him

CARLISLE, Mass., Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts firefighter has been put on administrative leave after he admitted to 11 charges of killing his neighbor's chickens by feeding them rat poison.

On July 28, Frank Sargent, a 17-year veteran of the Carlisle Fire Department and owner of a general-contracting business, was arrested and charged with 11 counts of malicious killing of a domestic animal.

"From April 29, 2014, to July 22, 2014, it was reported that 11 total chickens had died, including one rooster and 10 laying hens," according to the police report.

After briefly denying the charges, police confronted the 66-year-old with video of him distributing poisoned chicken feed to the doomed birds and on one occasion attacking them with wasp spray. Sargent copped to all the charges upon viewing the videos.

"I did what you said: I mixed mouse poison with bird seed and ... brought it over in a bucket and just threw it in [the chicken coop]," Sargent is quoted admitting in the police report.

"I couldn't sleep. I couldn't take it anymore ... I know it sounds crazy, but I got to the point where I thought the bird was mocking me. So I sprayed it with hornet spray just to make it stop."