Police probe mutilated animals at cemetery

Vineland police are investigating what they suspect might be ritualistic animal sacrifices after a Sacred Heart Cemetery caretaker told them he has found a number of mutilated animals at that Catholic cemetery over the last several months.

Police said the caretaker finally told them about the mutilated animals after finding a severed pig's head in a plastic bag near a grave site Oct. 18. They said he told them he disposed of the pig's head in the cemetery trash bin, the same way he had done with other animal parts since early this summer.

Peter Feuerherd, the director of communications for the Diocese of Camden, which oversees the cemetery, said the diocese is stepping up security measures at the cemetery, which takes up about 12 square blocks in a quiet residential section of Vineland along Walnut Street and includes a mausoleum at its west end.

Police said the caretaker, Doug Riley, told them he has also picked up mice with their heads severed and the headless bodies of crows buried in the grass.

Each time, police said Riley told them, they were on or near graves. He told police that he also had once found and disposed of a black pot with four-leaf clovers, dolls, and flowers.

Riley was unavailable for an interview.

Bev Greco, the executive director of the Cumberland County SPCA, said the incidents were consistent with what she had seen in other parts of the county over the last decade or so.

While she said she could not comment directly on this case because she had not seen the animal parts, it may well be another case of Santeria, "a complicated religious rite with origins in the Caribbean and Africa." She said the rituals apparently are conducted at night and in secluded places.

In March 2010, for instance, the county SPCA decided not to press a complaint after a hiker found several roosters with their throats cut in a plastic bag in the Willow Oak Natural Area off East Landis Avenue in Vineland.

Later police found another bag with black candles, gloves, a butter dish, and dirt from a cemetery in the park.

"We have seen these things off and on since, I would say, back in 2001 or so," said Greco. She said she had not known of any cases where there was other damage to property or people, and it was unclear whether the apparent sacrifice itself is illegal, especially if the animals are considered to be killed in a humane fashion.

Feuerherd, the diocese spokesman, said there was no damage to any gravestone, nor any graffiti at the cemetery.