Wandering around drunk
Joshua D. Shelton, a 21 year old young man from Delmar, Md wasn’t driving drunk, but still caused the death of close to 70,000 chickens. He was walking around in a drunken state on a chicken farm in Delmar, Md. He had apparently been attending a concert that evening somewhere else and had come to the chicken farm with the owners daughter. The daughter thought he had left not knowing he had somehow ended in the control building of the farm. All the power controls and breakers had been turned off.
Turned off the electric
No one is sure why, maybe the bright lights were keeping him awake, but Joshua turned of the electric on the farm that night. He was drunk and had no idea that the electric he turned off was vital for the buildings that housed chickens. The result was the death of nearly 70,000 chickens. The owner of the farm found the chickens dead in their buildings Saturday morning. He informed the deputy investigating the complaint that the chickens would begin to die after 15 minutes of having no electricity. He also told them he had planned on taking the chickens to the processing plant the next day. The value of the chickens was $20.000. The processing plant, Allen Farms estimated that it’s losses came to $220,000 according to the sheriff’s Chief Deputy Gary Baker.
Found asleep in the control building
Joshua must have passed out or simply fell asleep after he turned off the electric. He was found in the control building lying on the floor. His attire was only a t-shirt and boxer type underwear. Joshua was also laying in a puddle of his own urine. A deputy who was investigating the complaint awoke him. Joshua had no memory of how he ended up on the chicken farm. He was arrested and taken to jail. Joshua was charged with second degree burglary, trespassing and malicious destruction of property.
