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.
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Hello,
My name is Marci Fernino and I am from CT Soul Seekers Paranormal Investigations. I found your article quite interesting. We fully respect the opinions of everyone, however, I would like to respectfully comment on some of the points that you made, as it seems that you may have been given some misinformation.
DoingItLocal.com, a local news video website, was the first on the scene after the officers. Our group was asked by doingitlocal.com to come in and consult on this situation, as the producers have worked previously with CTSS and needed a trust-worthy source. We never
claimed to be experts in Santeria, just that we were knowledgeable in it. Santeria is not typical of our investigations but we do encounter it from time to time.
Later, the CT Post re-ran the video and then contacted our members for a follow up article for the following day.
In your article, you had stated, “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.”
As I stated previously, CT Soul Seekers were asked to contribute by DoingItLocal.com after a complaint was made to the Bridgeport Police Department. To the best of my knowledge, Jim Meyers had actually been
contacted first, but originally declined to have anything to do with this case as it was a conflict of interest being both a police officer in Bridgeport and a paranormal investigator. He was not present during ANY of the interviews that were held with us, therefore, I cannot
speak about any of his statements.
Apparently, the original report that was made was that a man was cursed by his ex-girlfriend in what THEY believed to be either Santeria or Voodoo and that there were 2 dead headless roosters hanging from a tree. The officers believed that the rooster’s heads were in a target bag located directly under the roosters carcasses. When they opened the bag they found a hat with a box cutter in it, but the roosters heads were nowhere around the scene. After we arrived there with DoingItLocal.com’s reporters, together we found 3 coconut shells, an animal jawbone and a snake skin.
Yes, the coconut shells did appear to be older, so we can not say whether or not that they were used in this ritual, however, coconut shells are often used in these kind of rituals, usually filled with rum. The area did appear to be a highly wooded area, so it would not be uncommon to see a snake skin lying around, however, this skin was
intentionally shoved into the ground at the base of the tree. It was loosened to be inspected but not removed from the ground. The animal jawbone, is believed to be that of a sheep, according to pictures that
were sent to a Voodoo priest for verification – very uncommon in that area. Given the signs when combined, it was our opinion that this was a Santerian ritual, however, more investigation on our part would need to be completed.
I, myself was misquoted in the article. When asked my opinion about curses, I simply said that I believe that if you have a strong enough faith in your religion (whatever that may be) that a curse would only have as much power as you put in to it. I stated that there are so many religions, that it would be ignorant for one to say that one is better than the other. I also stated that if you don’t believe in it, you give no power to it over you. I believe you combined my misquote with that of Jim Meyers. Additionally, I am a woman, not a man as you
stated in your article.
You also stated 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.”
Nicole Hall did state that Santeria is a religion and not necessarily a negative one as those not familiar with it might believe, however, as with other religions people can use it for bad. In this case, these were believed to be done as a curse. We at CT Soul Seekers do not
believe that it is right to judge anyone elses beliefs and we respect all religions.
You also stated”…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.”
This quote leaves me a bit bewildered. You only mention CT Soul Seekers as trying to get publicity when we were not the only Paranormal Investigators interviewed. We were also, as I stated twice before, called in as a favor for the DoingItLocal.com producers. As a result, we were called for other interviews on this (including the CT
Post) because we had been on the scene. We did not ask to be interviewed or set ourselves up for said interview as a promotional opportunity. That was not the intention of assisting here. However, we would be foolish to refuse such interviews if offered and if we are comfortable with the subject.
Finally, one thing that was not stated in the paper, was that this location was roughly 2 blocks away from a well known Sanitarian Botanical in which the member would often do rituals as curses for people who paid. Also, the animals were not killed on site, and believed by the police that this botanical may have been involved. One
member in the area, who was quite familiar with the botanical, stated that he believed it to be their work. When visiting the botanical, bags of feed were found by the door along with protection symbols.
That’s it. I just wanted to shed some further light on some of the comments posted, to make sure that you had they accurate information and also to let you know a little more about our involvement. As with all interviews, there were some inaccuracies reported as well by the interviewers. Thank you for your time.
First off, I updated the accidental mention of ‘he’ to a ‘she’ in the sentence referring to you. Sorry about that
Secondly, thanks for your response, Marci. I think it helped give a better look at some of the missing info from the article. Cleared up some things. I think the main issue I had with the original article was that everyone mentioned was a paranormal investigator (or at least affiliated). I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” I’m always hesitant when all of the sources seem to be coming at an issue from the same angle, whether that’s actually happening or just perceived. I would’ve been just as critical if everyone mentioned were cops, Santeria practitioners, etc. As I’m sure you’ve seen examples of yourself, there are plenty of paranormal investigators who tend to cash in on events like this as a way of getting some publicity, so things can sometimes get made a little more interesting for the public
I’m glad to hear that wasn’t your intention, though.