GRUESOME DEATH

Neighbor ‘driven crazy’ by noisy rooster ‘murdered its owner by sticking his fingers in his eyes until he died’

A MAN killed his neighbour by gouging out his eyes with his bare hands over a noisy rooster, police say.

Richard Ellison, 47, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder of Benny Foutch, 72, on May 17 at his home in Rock, West Virginia.

Ellison is also said to have killed the rooster.

Police gave testimony during a court appearance on Wednesday, where he appeared by video link.

Detective-Corporal MS Horn said Ellison had been diagnosed with bipolar and had previously been committed to a behavioral facility after he tried to put his girlfriend’s hands in a fire about two years ago.

Horn also said Ellison’s son had told him his dad had stared at him while holding a cooking pot the day before Foutch was killed.

A bloody handprint was discovered when cops searched Foutch’s home which has since been sent for analysis.

Ellison told Horn he had originally gone to Foutch’s home because a crowing rooster was “driving him crazy”.

“I asked him what happened with him and Benny, he then made the hand motion of pressing his thumbs to his eyes,’ Horn testified.

“He advised he went up there to kill the rooster because of a movie he had watched and because it was crowing,” according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

“He later explained that he pressed his thumbs into Benny’s eyes, he advised that he stayed there until he knew Benny was dead.

“He made the statement that he killed him, referring to the incident with Benny.
“He made a reference that Lucifer made him do it.

“He kept asking me to shoot him, that he deserved it.”

Horn also said he believed Ellison had made a reference to the film Deliverance, where a group of friends are attacked by deranged locals in Georgia.

He said that Ellison had “talked about them playing a fiddle and singing a song in the Bible”, and “squealed like a pig.”

There is no evidence that Ellison intended to kill Foutch when he went to his house.

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