I got an Avenge quest while in town and the "perpetrators" ended up being three dead chickens (from the quest where you have to restore order before Hemming's funeral), and therefore the quest can't be completed, since the chickens cannot be interacted with to "verify" their deaths.
In general, the targets of these quests seem to always be things that are already dead, as in I'll kill something, then find the Avenge quest, only for that thing I already killed to be the "target". I don't imagine this is how these are intended to go. Anyhow, I have a quest now that is hard locked, since I can't complete it and can't cancel it.
Screenshot is below: