Killer Tortoise

In July 1981 a tortoise was sentenced to death for murder. Tribal elders in Kyuasini, a village in Kenya, formally condemned the tortoise because they suspected it had caused the death of six people, apparently through magic. However, because none of the villagers was prepared to risk the tortoise's wrath by carrying out the execution, it was chained to a tree instead. The tortoise was later freed after the government promised an official inquiry into the deaths.

-- Source: Reader's Digest Book of Facts, © 1987, page 82.