CROWN HEIGHTS — A severed, bloody goat head was found in a neighborhood park, the latest of many such incidents in the neighborhood in recent years.
Crown Heights residents spotted the goat head inside Dr. Ronald McNair Park on Classon Avenue and Eastern Parkway on Friday, multiple people told DNAinfo New York. The severed head was found near a tree on a large red plate surrounded by feathers and placed on a square of cardboard.
A bloody white cloth was also found near the head, photos of the scene show. As of Sunday morning, the head was still in place inside the park, one resident said.
The display is remarkably similar to two other goats heads found in recent years inside or near the park. Last winter, a goat head surrounded by feathers was left on a reddish plate blocks away from McNair Park, on Grand and St. Marks avenues in Prospect Heights.
And in March 2015, a severed goat head was spotted by a woman walking her dog. The year before, the same woman told DNAinfo she’d seen two decapitated rooster heads inside McNair Park, also arranged with feathers on a large plate.
The sightings are part of a larger pattern of animal heads found in the area for years. In 2014, a severed goat head was found in Prospect Park, months before two skinned goat heads were found dangling from a Park Slope streetlight.
In 2015, an investigation by New York magazine looked into claims the severed animals heads were linked to Santeria or other religious rituals. But the report made no concrete conclusions, saying instead that everyone they spoke with on the subject, regardless of their faith, agreed that “whoever put them there was a total jerk."
