Last night’s article from the Connecticut Post was filled with all sorts of amusing stuff. Must be a slow news week over there.

In the latest of several incidents of apparent occult practice in the city, police are investigating what they believe was a Santeria curse against a Derby man — in the form of dead, headless roosters and other animal parts.

Stuffed with some kind of root and sewn up, the two beheaded roosters were found last week, hanging by their feet about 10 feet up from a tree near the intersection of Housatonic Avenue and Grand Street, according to police and paranormal investigators.

At the base of the tree was a bag containing a black knit cap and a box cutter, and nearby there were three coconut halves in a semi-circle, an apparent sheep’s jawbone and a snakeskin, said Nicole Hall, a paranormal investigator with CT Soul Seekers Paranormal Investigations.

The woman who set up this “curse” was apparently using it as a way of addressing issues she was having with her ex-boyfriend, according to Hall (the paranormal investigator). After performing the supposed “ritual”, she called him and let him know about it.

This sounds more like just a way to mess with the guy’s head more than anything else, but — hey — kudos on the originality, I guess. Not quite sure how this is supposed to help her in the upcoming court trial, but… whatever.

The rest of the article is spent detailing all of the “occult activity” that the city has been seeing in the past year or so. Most of the other commentary seems to come from Sgt. James Myers, who — coincidentally — is also a paranormal investigator.

In June, the police found a human skull, a beheaded chicken, chicken’s blood and other animal parts during a police raid. The following moth, two human skills surrounded by loose dirt and bloody papers with names on them were found at a cemetery. A few days after that, a body of a 2-year-old girl stolen from her grave (from a different cemetery) was found in a New Jersey river with chicken bones nearby.

The incidents were said to involve Santeria or similar religious rituals but, according to the police, weren’t related. What is interesting, though, is that the second incident mentioned might have involved the ex-girlfriend mentioned in this most recent case.

The police officer mentioned in this article goes on to talk about how there’s a fine-line here, but was quick to point out that people have a legal right to their religious practices. I totally support that, of course, but at the very least they should pursue to issue just from a “public nuisance” standpoint or even just illegal dumping of remains. I’m just so tired of hearing about folks doing dumb stuff that then gets tied up with the religion.

Be sure to watch the video in the article. It’s almost as amusing as the article itself. One part I found quite interesting was that the original complaint seemed to be only about the roosters hanging from the tree (along with the heads in a shopping bag from Target… Classy). It seems like it was the “paranormal investigators” that found the animal bone, snake skin, and coconut shells. Like the woman who found them said, there’s no way to tell how old they are. So the coconut shells can probably be ruled out. If they were going to be used, I doubt it would be the old husk part. The snake skin, well, it seemed like the area was pretty dense with trees and plants. Seems likely a snake could have shed its skin in a bush all on its own. So let’s go ahead and rule that out. The animal bone, who knows… So that pretty much just leaves the roosters.

Going back to the article, the last person interviewed was Marci Ferino, a “sensitive” with CT Soul Seekers (I’m sensing a trend here, myself). She basically went over the issue of faith, mind-over-matter and all of that. It ends with a message you might find in an X-Files episode: “There are things beyond us that we can’t explain; it doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

…agreed. But one thing I think it’s safe to say is here is a group of people from CT Soul Seekers looking to get some publicity for their group and are seeking to further legitimize their services.

Is there something going on in Connecticut? Could be. Certainly isn’t the first place I’d think of (or even in the Top 10) when I think about places with high concentrations of practitioners of Santeria, though. I wasn’t pleased with the way the article mixes Santeria, Voodoo, and “occult practices” together. Santeria does not involve human skulls, grave-robbing, or any of that.

People may do stuff in the name of Santeria, the same way plenty of bad things are done in the name of Christian, Islamic, or other major faiths, but those are fringe cases. As a whole, Santeria is a beautiful religion.

If the person who did this stuff does practice Santeria, well, I think she needs MORE practice…. and before she invests money in roosters and rope, she could consult the orisha to figure out what it is she should do — and not just doing stuff in the name of the orisha as a way of getting them to do what she wants.