Driver Accused of Abandoning 37,000 Pounds of Rotting Chicken Arrested
After a three-day search, authorities have arrested an Idaho man accused of a crime most fowl: ransoming a trailer carrying 37,000 pounds of frozen chicken and then leaving it to rot at a Montana truck stop.
According to the AP, truck driver Christopher Hall, 42, was picked up Friday afternoon by the Greater Idaho Fugitive Task Force on a parole violation apparently unrelated to the abandoned chicken, originally valued at $80,000.
The semi-trailer, described as dripping "rancid juices" and attracting flies, was discovered at Missoula's Flying J truck stop on Tuesday but may have been there for more than a month before that, The Seattle Times reports. Dixie River Freight Inc. first reported Hall's truck as missing on August 27th, after the driver sent his employer texts demanding money for the return of the semi and its carrion cargo.
On Friday, the trailer was towed to a nearby landfill and dumped into a freshly dug pit after having its leaks properly plugged. "People don't want rotting chicken juice all over their cars," a health department official told KECI-TV, a truth if there ever was one.
[Image via AP Photo/Nampa Police Department]