Key Evidence Obtained in Murder Case

A few weeks ago, it was particularly windy. I came home to find one of the plants on my balcony overturned. I uprighted the plant. It seemed there was less of it there than before it had been overturned, though not much less. Some plant bits must have blown off the balcony. The next day I came home to find the same thing. Only this time, it was worse, and there were almost no leaves left on the plant or anywhere else (photos here and here). The one leaf that I could find had bite marks in it. Clearly it was not the wind, and foul play was involved. I looked around. It seemed like quite a jump for a squirrel from the nearest tree branch. It could not have been one of the pigeons that attempt to alight on my balcony now and then, since they are blocked by a plastic mesh. I have seen them try, always unsuccessfully.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of rummaging in my kitchen. Which of my housemates is rummaging in the kitchen, I thought. Then I recalled that I don't have housemates. What else could it be? Whatever it was was rummaging in my food. It's the only thing I have to rummage in that would make the kinds of sounds I was hearing. Must be an animal of some kind. I started to panic a little bit because I know it can be difficult to deal with trapped animals. I walked into the hallway to see something with a bushy tail on top of my food, as I had suspected. The thing turned around. It was a squirrel. Squirrels aren't known to have the greatest memory, and I was a bit scared that it wouldn't remember how it came in. I knocked on the wall and disappeared. I wasn't sure where it went, though I couldn't hear anything anymore. I advanced into the living room and looked out the sliding glass door to see the squirrel on my balcony. To my relief, it remembered the way out. I walked up a little closer to see that something had made a squirrel sized hole in the screen door. I also found a plastic lid with fresh bite marks in it.

Impressions of the bite marks in the lid and the plant leaf have been taken. Furthermore, fingerprints at the site of the hole in the screen door have been taken and ran against AFIS. A suspect, one Mr. P. Nutbutter, has been identified, and confirmed by dental records. He has been arrested by police and charged with attempted robbery and herbicide. Investigators are still not sure how Mr. Nutbutter was able to get on the balcony. A nearby family of sparrows claimed that the pigeons were angered by the mesh, and were seen cooing with the squirrel. The pigeons are currently being interrogated.

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Note: While this story has been embellished somewhat, a plant on my balcony was killed a few weeks ago, and there was a squirrel in my kitchen this morning.