A great friend will be sitting in the cell on the bunk beside you when you come to, going "Man, that was fun."

The best friend, however, will come up with an alibi, no matter how ridiculous it makes him look, to get you out of the pokey.

That's why everyone needs friends like Larry Pollard and Nick Galifianakis.

No greater love hath any man than that he would risk his reputation -- and, possibly, a stint in the Hoo Hoo Hotel -- for his pal.

That's what Galifianakis and Pollard have done with their theory on Kathleen Peterson's death, a theory which they hope will spring their friend Michael Peterson from prison.

Naw, they're not saying it was the butler who killed Kathleen Peterson on Dec. 9, 2001. They're saying it was the bird.

Embarking upon a flight of fancy that famed oddball and movie director Alfred Hitchcock might've dreamed up after smoking a dime bag of wacky weed, Pollard and Galifianakis -- hereafter referred to as the duh-namic duo -- contend that an owl caused the gashes in Kathleen's scalp.

(Aha, I caught you looking at the date on this paper. Now that you know it's not April Fools' Day, read on.)

The marauding owl theory had been floating around the Internet even during the trial, which ended in October with Michael Peterson sentenced to life in prison. Pollard recently wrote a letter to District Attorney Jim Hardin urging him to re-open the case because new evidence made it "morally, legally and ethically the right thing to do."

Pollard was out of town and couldn't be reached, but when I talked to Galifianakis on Monday, he said he expected ridicule after The Herald-Sun wrote about their theory.

"When Larry first told me his theory," Galifianakis said, "I responded facetiously, 'Hoo, hoo done it?'

"The more I thought about it, I realized that it was plausible" and the district attorney should pursue every plausible theory, he said.

Galifianakis said neither he nor Pollard, whom he credits with hatching the theory, doubts Peterson's innocence. He declined to say what Peterson himself thinks of the theory.

Even more difficult to believe than the owl theory is that there are true believers who remain devoted to Peterson's cause.

Even during the trial I was struck by the loyalty -- if it wasn't blind, then it was nearsighted -- of rational-seeming people who'd suspended their powers of reason.

Indeed, to buy their theory, you'd also have to buy that the owl was not only murderous but conscientious, too.

How else could one explain, as Hardin noted in his response, the absence of feathers or copious amounts of blood leading outside from the death scene?

Could the hoity-toity Forest Hills neighborhood be plagued not only by murderous owls but owls who clean up after themselves? Hmm.

Hardin, ever the gentleman, responded to Pollard with a polite letter. "We appreciate your concern," he wrote, but he described the bird theory as "not credible."

Me, I would've summed it up in one word: cuckoo.

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