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Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Boston Globe
What is it with the uber-rich and other people's trees?
Advertisement If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might very well write a novel in which an especially entitled rich person cuts down a neighbor's tree to enhance their views. It seems all the rage. In the latest case here in New England, some guy on Nantucket allegedly took a chain saw to 16 of his neighbor's cedar, cherry and cypress trees, some of them a half-century old. In Advertisement The lawsuit claims 'there is an active and ongoing criminal proceeding related to this conduct' by police on Nantucket. That could be a game-changer. Up to this point, prosecutors have been reluctant to file criminal charges when some rich jerk kills or removes a neighbor's trees to enhance the views from their property. Instead, rich people have been allowed to do what they have always done: buy their way out of trouble. It happened last year in Maine, when a wealthy and politically-connected couple from Missouri were able to pay their way out of a jam after Amelia and Arthur Bond III are big cheeses in St. Louis. She was the Three years ago, after secretly poisoning the trees of their neighbor, Lisa Gorman, widow of L.L. Bean chairman Leon Gorman, Amelia Bond approached Mrs. Gorman, expressing deep sympathy about the dying trees, graciously offering to split the cost of taking down the sweeping oak trees that blocked the Bonds' view of the harbor. It somehow slipped her mind to mention she had poisoned them in the first place. Being a saavy Mainer, Mrs. Gorman politely declined the offer and asked her arborist to investigate. Turns out the Bonds had headed to Maine that year with their yachting gear and some Tebuthiuron, a powerful herbicide commonly used on cattle ranches in the Midwest. When there is trouble, the very rich call not the police but their lawyers. Attorneys representing the Bonds and Mrs. Gorman began a series of negotiations which ended with the Bonds accepting responsibility for poisoning the trees. Advertisement In the end, Officials in the town of Camden didn't think that was enough. Last year, they asked Knox County District Attorney Natasha Irving and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey to pursue criminal charges. But no prosecutions have been forthcoming. Irving told me that, given the limited resources in her office, she couldn't in good conscience launch a criminal case. She said any admissions the Bonds made in civil settlement agreements with Gorman, the town and state would not be admissible in a criminal case. She concluded the only charge she might feasibly pursue was criminal mischief, a misdemeanor that carries a $250 fine. Expending that kind of taxpayer money to possibly get a rich couple to pay a pittance just wasn't worth it, she said. A Still, as Nantucket police continue their investigation, there is the example of Harvey Updyke to consider. Advertisement So, in 2010, when Auburn defeated his beloved Crimson Tide in their annual Iron Bowl game, Harvey Updyke was understandably upset. He decided to avenge that loss by But, unlike the Bonds, Harvey Updyke wasn't allowed to buy his way out of trouble. He couldn't have afforded to, anyway. As a retired state trooper, he wasn't exactly rolling in that kind of dough. Updyke didn't help his case by going on a call-in radio show and admitting to poisoning the trees, ending his call with, 'Roll, damn Tide.' He eventually pleaded guilty in 2013 to poisoning the trees, This leads to two observations with which F. Scott Fitzgerald would undoubtedly agree: it is better to be rich than nice, and they take their football very, very seriously in Alabama. Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cooper Flagg is the pride of Maine, and he's psyched to represent it in the NBA
The state of Maine, often associated with breathtaking nature and lobster rolls, is about to be front and center at this year's NBA draft, as Cooper Flagg is expected to make history as the first No. 1 pick from the Pine Tree State. 'It's a really cool feeling, really cool for me to go through and kind of have all the support of Maine behind me,' Flagg told NBC News at the AT&T Flaggship Experience event in New York City ahead of the draft, which begins Wednesday night. Advertisement 'I actually got to go home for a little bit this summer so far, and just seeing all the support and seeing everybody was really good for me, and it's just such a cool feeling knowing that I have the whole state behind me, and it's kind of history that I'm being able to do.' Flagg is from Newport (pop. 3,133), a town 30 minutes west of Bangor, known not for its basketball players but for its natural beauty. And regardless of where he's drafted, Flagg will become just the third person born in Maine to play in the NBA, and the first one to be drafted in 41 years. Illinois and North Carolina currently lead the way with seven No. 1 picks each since the draft began in 1947. 'More than just my family, my village of people back home in Maine and my supporters who have kind of carried me through everything, and my supporters are really important to me and who I am today,' Flagg said. The Dallas Mavericks have the first pick in the draft, but no matter where he ends up, Flagg will remain a Mainer to his core — ordering his lobster rolls chilled with mayo (as opposed to the competing Connecticut version of warm with butter). Advertisement 'I attribute so much to where I come from and it's who I am. That sense of loyalty has always been with me,' he told "TODAY" co-anchor Craig Melvin. 'I think just being able to put on for the state has been something that's been really important to me the whole time, and feeling like I'm representing something bigger than myself.' Maine basketball runs through the Flagg family. Flagg's mother, Kelly Bowman Flagg, played at Nokomis Regional High School, the same school both Cooper and his twin brother, Ace, won a state championship with, and she captained the team at the University of Maine. Cooper's father, Ralph, played at Eastern Maine Community College. Ace currently plays for University of Maine. Kelly Flagg, mother of Duke's Cooper Flagg, at a news conference in San Antonio on April 4. (Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty Images) He even played against his mother, Kelly, who, as Cooper told Melvin, never let him win … outright. During their last game, Cooper was up 7-6, and Kelly fell, tearing her meniscus. Advertisement 'I count it as a win, because she forfeited, and I was up. But she won't give me the win,' he told Melvin. 'I was winning, so it should count either way.' Cooper's basketball career started with one-on-one games against Ace and older brother Hunter in the family's driveway in Newport. Those games sometimes ended in fistfights. Cooper, now 18 and 6-foot-9, says those games and his upbringing are at the root of his competitive drive. 'They taught us from a young age, and just playing 100% you know, as hard as you can every single time, playing and giving your all to the game. So I think it's kind of how you're raised. And then you kind of get that as you play more more in the driveway, and you just never want to lose to your brothers.' Advertisement According to Ace, Cooper was just like every other shy kid growing up in Maine. 'But when you have a tight-knit community, like we did in Maine, that's when you can really see him open up,' he said. 'We're surrounded by our friends and family, and he really comes out of his shell.' Ace recalls when he and Cooper played in a game at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, a year after they had moved to Florida to finish high school. Their friends, family and members of the community drove three to four hours from Maine, filling up the top section of the bleachers. 'It was the loudest section in the building. So that was incredible to see just support when we hadn't even been able to see most of them for a year at that point, and they still showed complete support.' Flagg has maintained his connection to Maine throughout his career, especially off the court. Last August, he signed with New Balance because of the company's presence in the state, including a manufacturing plant 25 miles from his hometown. 'The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me,' Flagg said at the time. 'That makes this really different and special. My mom used to go to the tent sale for back-to-school shopping there when we were kids. That really aligns the brand with my roots. It's a perfect fit.' Advertisement The AT&T Flaggship Experience leaned into Flagg's ties to Maine in an attempt to connect fans to his entire career — starting in his home state. They featured his jerseys from Nokomis H.S. and AAU team Maine United, displayed photographs and newspaper clips from his time in Maine and branded the activation as the 'Maine Event,' referring to the 'village' of support his mother, Kelly, often refers to. Cooper Flagg (center) with fans at the AT&T Flaggship Experience (Courtesy AT&T) But it's not just Maine that is behind Cooper — the fandom has spread to all of New England. Former Celtics player Brian Scalabrine, now a commentator for the Boston Celtics — said fans throughout the region constantly ask him about Flagg. Advertisement 'The whole state of Maine is behind him. New England is behind him,' Scalabrine told NBC News. 'They love the fact that this kid is out of the middle of nowhere.' Scalabrine notes that Flagg's rise in the game gives hope to young players around the country who are in remote places. 'Every kid, white, Black, a kid from Europe, wherever, is looking at like this kid from the middle of nowhere, and he's becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft,' he said. 'He's giving other people the opportunity to think you can come from anywhere and make it. You can come from the middle of Maine and develop yourself into the No. 1 pick in the draft.' Maine native and Boston Celtics fan James Little, 37, who was at the AT&T event said: 'He has the hopes of the entire state riding on his shoulders. This is one of the biggest things to ever happen for our state in a while.' Portland resident Marisa Veroneau, 43, also at the Flagg event on Monday, noted that even nonbasketball fans are excited about Flagg. 'There is quite a bit of buzz around town, Mainers are excited to see one of our hometown kids at the top of the draft. I expect Maverick jerseys to spike in these parts soon.' This article was originally published on


NBC News
25-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC News
Cooper Flagg is the pride of Maine, and he's psyched to represent it in the NBA
The state of Maine, often associated with breathtaking nature and lobster rolls, is about to be front and center at this year's NBA draft, as Cooper Flagg is expected to make history as the first No. 1 pick from the Pine Tree State. 'It's a really cool feeling, really cool for me to go through and kind of have all the support of Maine behind me,' Flagg told NBC News at the AT&T Flaggship Experience event in New York City ahead of the draft, which begins Wednesday night. 'I actually got to go home for a little bit this summer so far, and just seeing all the support and seeing everybody was really good for me, and it's just such a cool feeling knowing that I have the whole state behind me, and it's kind of history that I'm being able to do.' Flagg is from Newport (pop. 3,133), a town 30 minutes west of Bangor, known not for its basketball players but for its natural beauty. And regardless of where he's drafted, Flagg will become just the third person born in Maine to play in the NBA, and the first one to be drafted in 41 years. Illinois and North Carolina currently lead the way with seven No. 1 picks each since the draft began in 1947. 'More than just my family, my village of people back home in Maine and my supporters who have kind of carried me through everything, and my supporters are really important to me and who I am today,' Flagg said. The Dallas Mavericks have the first pick in the draft, but no matter where he ends up, Flagg will remain a Mainer to his core — ordering his lobster rolls chilled with mayo (as opposed to the competing Connecticut version of warm with butter). Maine basketball runs through the Flagg family. Flagg's mother, Kelly Bowman Flagg, played at Nokomis Regional High School, the same school both Cooper and his twin brother, Ace, won a state championship with, and she captained the team at the University of Maine. Cooper's father, Ralph, played at Eastern Maine Community College. Ace currently plays for University of Maine. Cooper's basketball career started with one-on-one games against Ace and older brother Hunter in the family's driveway in Newport. Those games sometimes ended in fistfights. Cooper, now 18 and 6-foot-9, says those games and his upbringing are at the root of his competitive drive. 'They taught us from a young age, and just playing 100% you know, as hard as you can every single time, playing and giving your all to the game. So I think it's kind of how you're raised. And then you kind of get that as you play more more in the driveway, and you just never want to lose to your brothers.' According to Ace, Cooper was just like every other shy kid growing up in Maine. 'But when you have a tight-knit community, like we did in Maine, that's when you can really see him open up,' he said. 'We're surrounded by our friends and family, and he really comes out of his shell.' Ace recalls when he and Cooper played in a game at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, a year after they had moved to Florida to finish high school. Their friends, family and members of the community drove three to four hours from Maine, filling up the top section of the bleachers. 'It was the loudest section in the building. So that was incredible to see just support when we hadn't even been able to see most of them for a year at that point, and they still showed complete support.' Flagg has maintained his connection to Maine throughout his career, especially off the court. Last August, he signed with New Balance because of the company's presence in the state, including a manufacturing plant 25 miles from his hometown. 'The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me,' Flagg said at the time. 'That makes this really different and special. My mom used to go to the tent sale for back-to-school shopping there when we were kids. That really aligns the brand with my roots. It's a perfect fit.' The AT&T Flaggship Experience leaned into Flagg's ties to Maine in an attempt to connect fans to his entire career — starting in his home state. They featured his jerseys from Nokomis H.S. and AAU team Maine United, displayed photographs and newspaper clips from his time in Maine and branded the activation as the ' Maine Event,' referring to the 'village' of support his mother, Kelly, often refers to. But it's not just Maine that is behind Cooper — the fandom has spread to all of New England. Former Celtics player Brian Scalabrine, now a commentator for the Boston Celtics — said fans throughout the region constantly ask him about Flagg. 'The whole state of Maine is behind him. New England is behind him,' Scalabrine told NBC News. 'They love the fact that this kid is out of the middle of nowhere.' Scalabrine notes that Flagg's rise in the game gives hope to young players around the country who are in remote places. 'Every kid, white, Black, a kid from Europe, wherever, is looking at like this kid from the middle of nowhere, and he's becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft,' he said. 'He's giving other people the opportunity to think you can come from anywhere and make it. You can come from the middle of Maine and develop yourself into the No. 1 pick in the draft.' Maine native and Boston Celtics fan James Little, 37, who was at the AT&T event said: 'He has the hopes of the entire state riding on his shoulders. This is one of the biggest things to ever happen for our state in a while.' Portland resident Marisa Veroneau, 43, also at the Flagg event on Monday, noted that even nonbasketball fans are excited about Flagg. 'There is quite a bit of buzz around town, Mainers are excited to see one of our hometown kids at the top of the draft. I expect Maverick jerseys to spike in these parts soon.'
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republican Sen. Rick Bennett announces independent bid for Maine governor
Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) addresses the upper chamber on May 7, 2025. (By Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star) After decades of public service as a Republican, state Sen. Rick Bennett of Oxford announced on Tuesday that he is running for governor as an independent. 'My candidacy is not an indictment of either party,' Bennett told Maine Morning Star in an interview. 'It's an indictment of the party structure and parties as the solution to solving our problems.' Calling his independent bid liberating, Bennett said he intends to take his message — one of fiscal responsibility — directly to Maine people and not a subset of the electorate, an approach he sees as a return to Maine's independent tradition. 'I see politics beginning to slide more towards the politics of Washington,' Bennett said, 'and I think we have the opportunity as Maine people to say no to that.' A lifelong Mainer, Bennett currently serves as Oxford County's senator, a term he plans to finish in 2026 to total 18 combined years of nonconsecutive service in the Maine House of Representatives and Senate, including formerly serving as Senate president. He's vied for higher office before. Running as a Republican, Bennett narrowly lost a bid for Maine's 2nd Congressional district in 1994 and a primary race for U.S. Senate in 2012. He then went on to chair the Maine Republican Party from 2013 to 2016, casting a vote for President Donald Trump the year of his exit as the party's elector. But his votes in the Legislature in recent years position him as one of the most bipartisan legislators. Bennett said he doesn't think he's changed his views much throughout his time in public office. Rather, he thinks the Republican Party, and politics more broadly, has embraced a toxicity that detracts from what he sees as the most pressing issues facing the state: declining quality education, a lack of access to health care particularly in rural areas and affordable housing. 'A lot of the energizing elements in the Republican Party are not what I think respond to the needs of a lot of Maine people,' he said. Bennett offered a similar critique amid the state budget debate in March. One of two Republicans to vote for a proposed change package that sought to address the urgent MaineCare deficit, Bennett told Maine Morning Star at the time that he was concerned about the growing demand for fidelity in politics entering Maine. 'There's an element in the Republican Party and the Republican caucuses that is sort of feeding off the chaos and disruptive energies of Donald Trump,' Bennett said, 'and it's really not a good thing to see.' That supplemental budget ultimately failed after opposition from others in his caucus who refused to back it without structural reform to the program, which is Maine's version of Medicaid. Later in March, Bennett voted against the two-year budget, as well as the addition passed last week. However, he was a rare voice among Republicans in not objecting to the budget being something largely crafted and advanced by Democrats, the majority party. 'We think about these things in partisan terms far too much,' he said in March. 'I object to this budget because it represents a dramatic failing of the Legislature to do its job.' Reiterating the reform he's long pushed for, Bennett said in an interview ahead of announcing his gubernatorial bid that, if elected, he would push for the Legislature to overhaul its budget process, specifically by building in opportunities to re-evaluate baseline spending, which the budget plan passed in March continued as is. While ultimately joining Republicans in opposing the budget plans for the next biennium, Bennett is no stranger to bucking his party. Recently, he joined Democrats in voting against a bill to ban transgender girls from playing girls sports or using girls bathrooms or locker rooms, as well as a slate of other proposals that sought to roll back protections for trans Mainers. While stating that he was initially unsure how he would vote, Bennett said in a speech on the Senate floor that he shared the proposals with his daughter, Abby, describing her as an accomplished athlete. 'Her response was simple and struck me deeply,' Bennett said. 'She said, 'These bills make me sad.' Her feelings gave me permission to be honest about mine too. I feel sadness that these are before us… I'm saddened by the hardening of silos and the temptation to stigmatize those who are different.' Bennett also joined Democrats in voting for a bill to restrict local authorities from carrying out federal immigration enforcement, specifically raising concern that municipalities would be on the hook to pay for their local police taking on federal immigration enforcement work, expanding their legal risk with no compensation. 'I, for one, am concerned about the use of Maine resources and the taking of those resources for activities that are governed by whatever party is in the White House,' he said on the Senate floor. 'We need to focus on Maine.' Bennett has championed the Wabanaki Nations' push for state recognition of their sovereignty, sweeping reform that current Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has opposed. He's also taken interest in laying the groundwork for a four-day work week and eliminating daylight saving time, though such a change would be contingent on federal approval. Bennett has also advocated for significant campaign finance reform, which, as he put it, is 'unfortunately one of the things that the Republicans and Democrats agree on in Augusta.' This year, the Legislature rejected a bill Bennett proposed to offer Mainers transparency regarding who spends money in elections by requiring political action committees to disclose their donors over $5,000. The proposal was based on an Arizona law that has already been tested in and held up by the courts. In 2023, Bennett also chaired the ballot question committee for a referendum Maine voters passed to ban companies from spending money on referendum campaigns if they are partially owned by a foreign government or entity. He also supported the referendum passed last year to place a $5,000 limit on super PACs, which are independent political action committees that can currently raise and spend unlimited funds. However, both of those reforms were blocked as legal battles play out in the courts. While Bennett has previously run his campaigns under the Maine Clean Elections Act, which offers full public financing of political campaigns, he said he will not be doing so for his gubernatorial bid, noting the currently inadequate funding for the program and higher qualifying contribution requirements for governor that he sees as difficult to achieve without the backing of a political party. A bill the Legislature passed, which Bennett supported, could also change how Mainers cast their votes in the gubernatorial race in 2026. It currently awaits the governor's approval. LD 1666 would expand ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates by preference, for general and special elections for governor and state legislators. RCV is currently used for federal elections and gubernatorial and state-level primary elections in Maine. 'I wasn't wild about ranked-choice voting but the voters of Maine said twice that they want it,' Bennett said, referring to Mainers initially voting the system into law and later expanding it. 'So, I have been supporting it and trying to make it work.' Though, Bennett declined to comment on how he thinks the expansion of this voting method would impact the governor's race. The Republicans currently running for governor are state Sen. James Libby of Cumberland, Robert Charles of Bangor, who worked in the federal government during the George W. Bush administration, Navy veteran Steven Christopher Sheppard, also of Bangor, Kenneth Capron of Portland, David John Jones of Falmouth, Owen McCarthy of Gorham, Democratic contenders include Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate President Troy Jackson and the children of two of Maine's current members of Congress, Hannah Pingree, also the former head of Gov. Janet Mills' Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and Angus King III. There is also one other unenrolled candidate so far, Alexander Kenneth Murchison of Dover Foxcroft. The Republicans currently running for governor are state Sen. James Libby of Cumberland, Robert Charles of Bangor, who worked in the federal government during the George W. Bush administration, Navy veteran Steven Christopher Sheppard, also of Bangor, Kenneth Capron of Portland, David John Jones of Falmouth, and Owen McCarthy of Gorham. Democratic contenders include Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Senate President Troy Jackson and the children of two of Maine's current members of Congress, Hannah Pingree, also the former head of Gov. Janet Mills' Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and Angus King III. There is also one other unenrolled candidate for governor so far, Alexander Kenneth Murchison of Dover-Foxcroft. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE


Boston Globe
23-06-2025
- Boston Globe
She was a quiet bird expert. Then she was called to investigate a murder in Maine.
Advertisement 'What's these houses?' Laybourne asked the detective, her gravelly North Carolina drawl weighing down every syllable. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'They're brooder houses,' he answered. This amused Laybourne. Before the trip, a friend had told her that she was heading to the chicken capital of Maine, and the abundance of poultry infrastructure lent some credence to this quirky bit of trivia. It was a welcome, albeit brief, distraction in otherwise tense territory. At her hotel, Laybourne received a handwritten letter from Peter Culley, the young state prosecutor who'd soon be interrogating her on the witness stand. He apologized for not picking her up personally from the airport; the team was ironing out some last-minute details on the case, he explained. But, he noted, 'I fully expect we'll get to your testimony tomorrow.' Advertisement Culley, a lifelong Mainer who was just a few years out of law school, had plotted an exhaustive case against Henry Andrews, a 35-year-old laborer who stood accused in state court of the brutal murder of Hazel Doak, his elderly former landlord. Laybourne would appear in the penultimate act of the prosecutor's script, the last witness he'd call before closing arguments. Roxie Laybourne examines a specimen in an undated photo. from Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Birds, Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution Some of Laybourne's colleagues at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., considered her boyish. Some found her ornery. Everyone agreed that she was an authority — perhaps the authority — on feathers. Culley hoped that if any embers of doubt were still smoldering in the jury box by the time Laybourne took the stand, she'd extinguish them by offering up scientific analysis showing that feathers recovered from the scene of the crime matched bits of feather that were found on Andrews's clothing at the time he was apprehended. To the best of anyone's knowledge, this 1972 case would mark the first time that feather forensics would be used in a homicide trial. When morning arrived, Laybourne stepped outside and walked over to a small, wooded area near the hotel's parking lot. To her surprise, she spotted some chicken feathers on the ground. On the drive to court, she saw trucks hauling wooden crates, leaving trails of chicken feathers blowing in the wind. Just about anywhere else, it'd be strange to take a walk in the woods and emerge with poultry down stuck to your boots or pants. But in this wedge of eastern Maine, feathers seemed to be everywhere — and that made Laybourne uneasy. 'I didn't know what I had gotten myself in,' she later said. Advertisement F orget blueberries and lobsters; for a short stretch in the mid-20th century, chickens topped the culinary pecking order of Maine. Belfast played an outsized role in the industry, and millions of broilers met their maker in the city's dueling poultry plants. Build an economy on the back of butchered chickens and life will get messy. As Laybourne observed on her first morning in town, the industry's leftovers were everywhere. Some residents had to rake feathers off their lawns and others complained of a foul stench that would drift through their yards. Most unappetizing was the steady stream of putrefied byproduct that flowed out of the processing plants and into Penobscot Bay. The bloody, fatty industrial runoff caked the shoreline and congealed into a blanket that bobbed atop the water. At low tide, a rust-colored stain could be seen on the rocks and sand, earning Belfast the unfortunate nickname 'the City with a Bathtub Ring.' A writer for Newsweek wrote about how ritzy New Yorkers had taken to calling Belfast 'Schmaltzport,' a reference to the Yiddish term for chicken fat. Chickens marked a hard-won path to prosperity for a city that had endured its share of booms and busts. To showcase the local industry's might, Belfast started hosting Advertisement Satiating thousands of New Englanders sweltering in the July heat wasn't easy, but the broiler festival rarely left guests hungry. A Popular Mechanics reporter once marveled at the scale and efficiency of the operation: 'During the two-days of the festival, a 130-man crew works in three shifts to prepare 13 tons of Maine broilers over charcoal-fed barbecue pits totaling 300 feet in length,' he wrote. 'The birds, brown and hot, are then put on a 100-foot conveyor belt and carried directly from the pits to the serving tables.' It was American exceptionalism at the local level — and fun for the entire family. On the weekend of July 17, 1971, however, the celebration soured. That's when, according to prosecutors, Henry Andrews blew into town on Friday with two friends who were ready to party. Drinks flowed early and the first place Andrews took his buddies was a sturdy white farmhouse a mile outside of town. He had rented a room there a few years earlier while clearing trees on the surrounding property. During the impromptu visit, Andrews found Hazel Doak, a 71-year-old widow who had lived there for more than 20 years. She was Andrews's landlord during his time in town and the relationship was allegedly rocky. Doak didn't appreciate Andrews showing up unannounced that Friday: After a tense exchange, she asked the two men accompanying Andrews to remove him from her property and get lost. They complied, shook off the uncomfortable start to the weekend, and made their way into town for dinner and a night of drinking. Around 1:45 a.m., an inebriated Andrews reportedly ditched his pals and teetered over to the Main Street taxi stand, where, through droopy eyes and slurred words, he asked for a ride back to the Doak farm. The trip lasted fewer than 10 minutes and cost a buck. The driver peeled away into the night, leaving Andrews swaying under the influence at the edge of the driveway. Advertisement At 10:30 the next morning, Doak's longtime friend Edith Ladd pulled up to the house. The two women had spoken on the phone the previous night and made plans to head over to the broiler festival together. Ladd went to the back entrance that she typically used and found it still latched shut. She went around to the front of the house, where the door swung wide open. Inside, she found Doak's lifeless body heaped on a bed, clad in nothing but a nightgown. White and tan feathers dangled from her hair, specked her shoulders, and clogged her mouth, throat, and nostrils. Horrified, Ladd looked down and found feathers stuck to the floor, forming a trail that went from the bedroom down the hall and toward the dining room. Laybourne examining a feather at the Smithsonian. from Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Birds, Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution Ladd called the police and huddled in her car with her daughter, grandson, and other family members, who had been waiting patiently to get to the festival. When the officers arrived, they followed the trail of feathers downstairs and found the cellar door cracked open. The best they could surmise, someone had grabbed Doak's pillow and smothered her with such force that it burst the pillow open and sent feathers everywhere, including onto the murderer. Whoever it was then fled the property and dashed off into the woods. Leads came in quick and signs pointed to Andrews, who was nowhere to be found. Near the end of the weekend, a soaking-wet Andrews walked into the Belfast Police Station and, according to police testimony, allegedly declared, 'I came to give myself up.' Advertisement The officer on duty later testified that he didn't know what Andrews was giving himself up for and he didn't bother asking. Instead, the officer sold Andrews a pack of cigarettes, gave him a box of matches, and arranged a ride over to the sheriff's department, figuring the guy got stuck in the weekend rainstorms and could use a warm meal. The sheriffs on duty knew exactly who Andrews was and what he was wanted for. They placed him under arrest and collected his clothes — and the feathers that were stuck to them. Police sent several bags of evidence to the FBI for careful analysis at the bureau's crime lab in Washington, D.C. There was head hair and pubic hair, a pack of cigarettes, four latent fingerprints, pillowcases, bed sheets, one US dollar, and nearly every piece of clothing Andrews had with him when he was arrested: boots, belt, shirt, socks, trousers, and pajama pants. Knowing the murder weapon was a pillow, the agents in Washington understood that the feathers stuck to his clothes might be a key piece of trace evidence, but they had no clue how to analyze them in any meaningful way. Fortunately, they had heard all about L aybourne's investigatory superpower was an ability to take a tiny fragment of feather, look at it under her microscope, and identify the type of bird from which it came. She reached her conclusions primarily by analyzing the shape and patterns of structures called barbules that are invisible to the naked eye. It didn't matter if the piece of feather looked like pocket lint that had been whipped around a blender — Laybourne almost always determined its avian owner. She was, as far as anyone knew, the only person in the world who possessed this unusual, self-taught skill set, which would become the foundation of a new field called forensic ornithology. Laybourne began her career in the 1930s as a taxidermist at a small museum in her native North Carolina. During World War II, she landed at the Smithsonian, where she stuck with taxidermy for a few years and then started helping manage the museum's massive bird collection on behalf of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It was ornithological grunt work — satisfying but not always stimulating. But one fall day in 1960, her boss asked her to have a look at some mutilated bird remains that had been removed from the engines of an Eastern Air Lines plane that struck a flock of birds while taking off from Logan International Airport. Laybourne at work in the Smithsonian in an undated photo. from Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Birds, Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution Her life was never the same. She spent thousands of hours holed up in back rooms of the museum, analyzing chopped up bird bits on behalf of the FAA, the US Air Force, airlines, and engine makers. Knowing what kind of birds were getting hit most frequently —and how much they weighed — was key to informing new safety and engineering standards. In the absence of species and weight data, 'the technical community was left with solving a problem it could not define,' a colonel in the Air Force told Laybourne. But transferring her techniques to violent crimes and testifying in a murder trial was uncharted territory for everyone involved. It was anyone's guess as to whether this emerging branch of forensic science and its sole practitioner would be able to withstand the scrutiny of aggressive defense attorneys, dispassionate judges, and uninformed jurors. Before heading to Maine, Laybourne analyzed and reanalyzed the feathers collected from Andrews's clothing. Unfettered access to the Smithsonian's bird collection meant that she could compare the evidence against exotic reference specimens from some of the most distant corners of the world, be it a Blyth's hornbill from Papua New Guinea or a harpy eagle from the Amazon. Pillows aren't typically filled with the feathers of rare birds, though, and Laybourne didn't need to dig deep for this case: Of the 11 pieces of evidence provided to her for analysis, 10 of them contained traces of duck, goose, and/or chicken feathers, a common mixture in commercial products. In Laybourne's expert opinion, the feathers plucked from Andrews's socks, boots, and pants matched the mix of feathers in the pillow that was pinned over Doak's face as she struggled to fill her lungs one last time. For all of her scientific expertise, Laybourne was unpolished and unpracticed when it came to criminal proceedings. She didn't know what to expect when she entered the courthouse, and that morning's realization that chicken feathers sometimes seemed to rain from the sky in Belfast didn't help soothe her nerves. The morning bustle inside the small courthouse was a sharp departure from the employee-only corridors of the museum, where biologists talked in hushed tones and the birds never made a peep. After a few awkward minutes of hanging around, waiting for the trial to get underway, Laybourne struck up a conversation with a gentleman who said he was a birder and wanted to know more about her work. A member of Culley's team quickly interrupted to inform Laybourne that she was actually speaking with Andrews's attorney. 'I couldn't have gotten in a bigger mess,' Laybourne later said. Despite the bumpy start to the morning, Laybourne delivered the goods once she was on the stand. Sensitive to the limitations of her science, she didn't overstate her findings or attempt to stretch her analysis to favor the prosecution. She explained that she had performed 'thousands of feather match-ups' in the past. The feather fragments collected from Andrews's clothes, she said, had similar characteristics as the ones removed from the crime scene. 'As far as I could tell,' Laybourne told the judge and jury, trying her best to cut through the scientific jargon and get to the point, 'they look like they could have come from the same source.' The testimony went just as Culley had planned. Laybourne returned to Washington and the State of Maine rested its case, handing the floor over to Andrews's team. Andrews had pleaded not guilty/not guilty by insanity. Laybourne at the Smithsonian in 1992 with the bird collection. from Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Birds, Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution Facing what looked to be a mountain of evidence, Andrews's attorney told the court that he would prove the murder was 'brought about by insanity.' According to news reporting of the time, jurors heard about an occasion when Andrews chopped down his brother's bedroom door with an ax while sleepwalking and about another instance in which he allegedly choked a 19-year-old. Andrews's own mother took the stand, testifying that her son exhibited disturbing behavior from a young age. When he was 3, she said, 'He changed from a normal, pleasant child to a highly emotional child' who would set the grass on fire and experience extreme mood swings. His troubles worsened after he suffered a head injury in a motorcycle crash as a teenager. He was in and out of hospitals with a series of mental health episodes, his mother testified, even confessing to the jury that she wished her son had never been discharged from the first ward where he was sent after the accident. After establishing his client as a man plagued by many demons, the defense attorney attempted to poke holes in the case by taking aim at Laybourne. He told the jury that there was no evidence placing Andrews at the scene of the crime. The taxi driver never saw Andrews enter the house, and nobody witnessed him leaving. The state's whole case rested on some newfangled field of feather identification, which the attorney derided as a 'weak basis' on which to convict a man of murder. The jury entered deliberation on a Saturday. The options were not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, or guilty. After only 2½ hours behind closed doors, the jurors emerged with a unanimous decision: not guilty. The ruling stunned many people, including Andrews's own attorney. Culley, the prosecutor, recalls the defense attorney walking over and asking, 'What just happened?' Fifty years later, Culley said he still considered it a baffling injustice. It had nothing to do with Laybourne, he said. Her testimony was sound and her feather identifications accurate. All Laybourne could do was focus her talents on the next case and continue following the science. B y the time the jury delivered its verdict in Maine, Laybourne was already back in her corner of the Smithsonian, working up a report on her next case and preparing to testify again. This time, detectives in Utah had found feathers in the house of a woman who had been bludgeoned to death, allegedly by a man wearing a down jacket that tore during the altercation. If Laybourne could match the feathers at the scene to those in the jacket, that would be key evidence for the prosecution. As curious as her career path had been, Laybourne never intended or expected to be working at the intersection of ornithology and homicide. 'I didn't like doing crimes of violence,' she later recalled. But she stuck with it and plodded deeper into criminal affairs out of a sense of duty, knowing full well that law enforcement didn't have any other feather experts in their corner. "The Feather Detective" by Chris Sweeney. Handout In the fall of 1972, she boarded a flight for Salt Lake City, ready to present evidence in a case against another accused murderer. At some point during the trip, she must have wondered what she was getting herself into. It was a question she found herself pondering frequently as her caseload evolved. How had it come this far? How did a Southern girl with a talent for taxidermy end up at one of the most renowned museums in the world, investigating assorted tragedies? In the months, years, and decades that followed that first bitter murder trial in Maine, Laybourne, who died in 2003, transformed her obscure niche into a truly consequential field of science. Her findings helped successfully prosecute murderers, poachers, and even a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, who tarred and feathered a civil rights activist. She investigated several more tragic airplane crashes caused by birds, working closely with the aviation industry and the Air Force to bird-proof their planes and develop new safety standards. And she trained a generation of proteges in forensic ornithology, forever changing our understanding of birds — and the feathers they leave behind. Chris Sweeney is a journalist based in Boston. This story was excerpted from by Chris Sweeney. Copyright © 2025 by Chris Sweeney. Reprinted by permission of Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Send comments to magazine@ Learn More: Chris Sweeney will appear in conversation with Globe editor Lisa Weidenfeld on July 23 at 7 p.m. at Brookline Booksmith. To register and for more information, visit