DURHAM — Larry Pollard gets ruffled feathers when doubters quickly dismiss his conjecture that a killer owl, not novelist Mike Peterson, might be responsible for bloodshed in his neighborhood.

Peterson has exhausted all but the slimmest hope of winning another chance at trying to convince a jury he did not kill his wife. But that hasn't stopped Pollard, the inmate's former neighbor, from continuing to tout his notion that an owl, not a fancy fireplace poker as prosecutors postulated, caused the blunt-force trauma and head wounds that drained the life from Kathleen Peterson in December 2001.

This winter, after two Apex businessmen were attacked by a territorial owl, and the attack was caught on a security camera videotape, Pollard renewed his appeal for support. The lawyer-turned-businessman has spent years gathering information — from the medical examiner's office, at North Carolina museums, and in his own backyard where photos of owls in nearby trees have been snapped.

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