6/8/69—Filed by the Sudbury police department. Juvenile case # 688-GH-9491

Peter Coffin—2/5/59

Peter Coffin, age 10, arrested on charges of “Animal Cruelty.” Coffin was accused of putting slug poison in the next door neighbor’s dog’s dog food bowl. When the dog’s owner, Mr. John Vander, found his dog in its death throes, he noticed that Peter Coffin was “watching intently from over the fence.” This was the third dog in the neighborhood to have died from “accidental” poisoning. Two days later, another neighborhood boy, Timothy Hopkins, approached Mr. Vander and told him that Peter had admitted to killing all three of the dogs. Timothy led Mr. Vander to their secret clubhouse in the woods, where Mr. Vander found slug poison, and a manual written by Peter Coffin describing in detail how to poison a dog. (See evidence for slug poison

[E-TEBO-993345-01] and manual [E-TEBO-993345-02) Upon being brought in for questioning, Peter Coffin broke down and admitted that he had killed the dogs. He stated that he had only done so because dogs scared him. He then proceeded to show a dog bite scar on his left buttock that he had received when he was a child. Peter Coffin has been placed in a juvenile detention facility for three months as per the request of his parents.