WESTFIELD – When two delivery drivers admitted, in April, that they had perpetrated a gruesome Easter ‘prank’ only two of the five rabbit heads they claimed to have left in mailboxes in the city had been discovered.
Since then, the other three rabbit heads have been reported and investigated, and charges have been filed. And the two men – Joshua A. Balise, 26, of 87 Cochran St., Chicopee and Christopher R. McHugh, 24, of 78 Corona St., Springfield – have had of what is likely be the first of their several days in court.
The first two of the five rabbit heads eventually discovered were found on the day after Easter in mailboxes on Pinehurst and Willis streets which, apparently coincidently, belonged to two sisters.
Det. Brian Freeman was assigned to investigate and reports in a court document “After The Westfield News and other media outlets ran the story, the Westfield Police Department received another report of a similar event” and eventually five rabbit heads were found to have been deposited in mailboxes for residents to find.
After the bizarre story was repeated by a multitude of media outlets, both locally and nationally, Freeman also received word from a witness who reported that he had seen two acquaintances “with rabbit heads early in the morning of Easter Sunday. He stated that both parties were talking about their ‘Easter Prank’ and told him that they had five rabbit heads and that they were going to put them in mailboxes on Easter as a joke.”
With suspects identified, Freeman invited Balise to the station for an interview and when he arrived he was accompanied by McHugh. Freeman reports that he had not mentioned McHugh when he spoke with Balise.
The two men were interviewed separately after they each knowingly waived their Miranda rights.
“Both parties were reluctant to tell the truth and came to the station with the intent of denying any wrongdoing,” Freeman reports. “Both eventually admitted that a few days before Easter that took five dead rabbits from roads in Southwick and Granville and thought it would be funny to cut the heads off and leave them for people to find on Easter.”
Freeman later said that the two men were delivery drivers for a Springfield newspaper and left the rabbit heads in random mailboxes when they delivered their Sunday newspapers in the city.
“The geniuses didn’t realize that people weren’t going to open their mailboxes on Easter morning” to find the rabbits, Freeman said.
He said that the duo claimed that “they found five dead rabbits, at different spots, like roadkill” but said he has difficulty believing that aspect of their story.
In his report to the court, Freeman notes “I believe it is not plausible that someone could find five dead rabbits on the side of the road in a few hours. It is also not believable that someone could even hit five rabbits with a car on purpose in the short time period.”
Although some of the rabbit heads were buried before police became involved Freeman reports that the specimen that he examined showed no sign of being run over and the person who buried the first two rabbit heads said that did not appear to have been stuck by a car.
He noted that Balise had recently completed a hunter’s safety course and speculated that he was dissembling to protect his hunting license.
He writes “The consensus of the officers I have spoken with about this is that the suspects killed these animals on purpose with the intent of using the animals in their ‘prank’”.
Freeman said killing rabbits, and even decapitating the corpses, is not a violation of the cruelty to animals statute and predicted that the men would be charged only with disorderly conduct.
On June 20, the two men appeared in Westfield District Court before Judge Philip A. Contant and were each arraigned for five charges of disorderly conduct. In addition each was charged with three charges of vandalizing property and two charges of defacing property relative to the mailboxes where they left the bloody rabbit heads.
At least three of the victims who found the rabbit heads in their mailboxes, mature women who live alone, had expressed concern to Freeman that the perpetrators might retaliate if they pressed charges but all there wanted to pursue the charges anyway.
Contant enjoined both defendants from making any threats or violence toward the victims when he allowed their release on their personal recognizances pending Aug. 12 hearings.
