PROVIDENCE, R.I. ? Jade the parrot is causing a squawk.

The 4-year-old bird has become the subject of a custody battle since the April slaying of a Florida woman, Joan Jacobs.

Jacobs’ Rhode Island relatives say that the talking bird sounds remarkably like Jacobs and that the woman was so fond of Jade that she took showers with the parrot and taught it to sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

But Gordon Jacobs, who is in jail in Florida on charges of murdering his wife, insists the male blue-fronted Amazon belongs to him. He wants Jade to remain paired with another parrot of his outside jail, of course.

Gordon Jacobs has pleaded innocent and is awaiting trial. Police have said he told a dispatcher twice the night of the slaying that he shot his wife. Investigators say the slaying may have been about money.

Jade was registered to Gordon Jacobs, a 60-year-old jewelry dealer who bred dozens of birds, animal control officials say. But Joan Jacobs’ family contends Gordon Jacobs bought Jade for his wife to get her interested in his hobby.

“It’s a part of my sister,” says Lori Paolino, Joan Jacobs’ sister. “It was her friend, her bird, her pet. And, we love that bird. It reminds me of her.”

This parrot named Jade has become the focus of a family custody battle. Jade's former owner, Joan Jacobs, was found slain in April in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Paolino says that she recalls her sister feeding Jade with an eyedropper when he was young, and that she used to mistake the parrot’s voice for Joan’s when her sister put the bird on the phone.

“I’d say, ‘You got me again. You tricked me,”‘ says Paolino, who lives in Johnston with her yellow cockateel, Gloria.

Joseph DeAngelis, an attorney and family friend, was an annual visitor to the Jacobs home and says he only saw Jade with Joan. Her family will go to court to get custody of the bird, he says.

The two birds were taken to a Palm Beach County, Fla., animal shelter after Gordon Jacobs’ arrest. Two weeks ago, they were released to his attorney, who gave them to a Florida family.

Gina DiPace watched over Jade during his $10-a-day stay at the animal shelter. She says Jade never sang, never mimicked Joan’s voice and didn’t seem to miss her or Gordon.