It sounds like she'd been complaining for some time about the peacocks. I can see being frustrated when no one will take care of the problem.
As for hitting it with a bat... if I were to try to "take one out" myself, I'm not sure how else I could do it. A gun probably isn't allowed in a residential area.
Maybe she didn’t call the right people. I believe that she was annoyed by it. However you don’t just kill something that annoys you. You get together with the other neighbors & you take the steps to correct the problem. I don’t buy into the nobody would do anything stuff. Peacocks aren’t cheap & somebody would have taken it. If it bothered her that much she could have called animal control. And if she put up with it for years ,shame on her. She should have moved. I have a huge Heron that is raiding my koi pond. I don’t kill the darn bird, I net my pond. I have sprayed it with the hose but I sure wouldn’t bat that darn thing. If I did anything to it, I would be jailed asap. They are protected, so I deal with my fish stolen & net the pond. That Heron would attack me if it could I think.