Each morning, Rosemary Diskin and her 11-year-old son would watch from their deck as five young foxes played in the yard next door. But on May 8, Diskin watched in horror as the owner of the property put a smoke bomb in the fox hole and covered the opening with a piece of wood, she said. "I ran down, but it was too late," said Diskin, who lives at 18 Appaloosa Lane. "I called him a murderer. I told him he just murdered five little babies. I cried for two days. I was devastated. It was a very horrible thing."
The owner of the home, James Hartigan of Danvers, denied killing any foxes. Hartigan doesn't live on Appaloosa Lane and is in the process of selling the home. "You have some real bad information. I decline any further comment," Hartigan said when contacted at his home.
But Dyan Katz, Hamilton's animal control officer, said Hartigan admitted to her that he killed the foxes. She said she recovered one dead baby fox from Hartigan's yard, and there's a good chance the entire litter perished. Katz said Hartigan could face a charge of cruelty to animals.
Katz turned over the case to state environmental police, who have jurisdiction over wildlife matters, she said. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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