You probably won't see this one on an episode of "Law & Order" next season, or if you do, you'll know the script writers are really running out of ideas. But for the second time in less than a week, someone left a cooked pig's head at an area cemetery, along with a platter of other food and a glass of wine.
The latest discovery occurred Friday at St. Peter's Cemetery on Sheridan Street in Danbury. It happened four days after a visitor made a similar find at the South Street Cemetery in Bethel.
A Danbury police evidence technician and a detective who went to the cemetery shortly after 6:20 p.m. photographed the buffet, but couldn't log it into evidence.
"The items were not salvageable," is the way Lt. Shaun McColgan phrased it. Instead, city public works personnel disposed of them.
Danbury police couldn't say whether the discovery was connected to the earlier incident, or whether it was the work of a copycat. But they reported it to Bethel police, who said their own case remains under investigation.
In any event, according to Ronald Loomis, of the International Cultic Studies Association, the "offerings" were probably benign.
"That's not in any way what would be happening in a Satanic ritual," said Loomis, who lives in New London and has been researching and lecturing about cults for the past 25 years.
If the pig had been killed by devil-worshipers, he said, the animal's organs would have also been left at the scene, and the pig "would have been sacrificed in a ritualistic way."
More likely, the offerings were a show of respect to the dead, possibly by someone of Asian extraction, according to Professor Lu-Sheng Chong of the Chinese Cultural Learning Center in Seattle.
In China, the practice of leaving a cooked pig's head, along with other food and wine, at the tomb of a dead friend or relative dates back thousands of years.
"It was considered a very sacred way to show respect and admiration to the deceased," said W. George Lai of Bethel. "This practice may very well exist in other Asian countries that were influenced by ancient Chinese culture."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8798743/
The latest discovery occurred Friday at St. Peter's Cemetery on Sheridan Street in Danbury. It happened four days after a visitor made a similar find at the South Street Cemetery in Bethel.
A Danbury police evidence technician and a detective who went to the cemetery shortly after 6:20 p.m. photographed the buffet, but couldn't log it into evidence.
"The items were not salvageable," is the way Lt. Shaun McColgan phrased it. Instead, city public works personnel disposed of them.
Danbury police couldn't say whether the discovery was connected to the earlier incident, or whether it was the work of a copycat. But they reported it to Bethel police, who said their own case remains under investigation.
In any event, according to Ronald Loomis, of the International Cultic Studies Association, the "offerings" were probably benign.
"That's not in any way what would be happening in a Satanic ritual," said Loomis, who lives in New London and has been researching and lecturing about cults for the past 25 years.
If the pig had been killed by devil-worshipers, he said, the animal's organs would have also been left at the scene, and the pig "would have been sacrificed in a ritualistic way."
More likely, the offerings were a show of respect to the dead, possibly by someone of Asian extraction, according to Professor Lu-Sheng Chong of the Chinese Cultural Learning Center in Seattle.
In China, the practice of leaving a cooked pig's head, along with other food and wine, at the tomb of a dead friend or relative dates back thousands of years.
"It was considered a very sacred way to show respect and admiration to the deceased," said W. George Lai of Bethel. "This practice may very well exist in other Asian countries that were influenced by ancient Chinese culture."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8798743/