Jackson, Miss., police held a press conference Monday, June 12, to discuss the latest details on a gruesome discovery made in a local neighborhood over the weekend.
JPD officers are working to determine if a burned, headless human body found on Green Avenue is linked to the discovery of a severed head on a resident’s porch early Saturday morning, according to local station MS News Now. Authorities said the burned body was located just after 4 p.m. in a wooded area that same day — less than a mile away from where the head was found.
“Why we can’t say right now that one belongs to the other [is] due to the type of crime and the close proximity of the body parts,” Police Chief Lee Vance said. “We can assume that perhaps [the body] is the remains that was attached to the head this morning.”
Neighbors said it was a group of children who came across the disturbing scene in a wooded area of their neighborhood, just hours after police discovered the head after 9 o’clock that morning while responding to a call for suspicious activity.
Residents were shocked to learn what had happened.
JPD on scene of "suspicious death" investigation, 1500 blk. Deer Park St. Decapitated unidentified male located. More info to come.
— Jackson Police Department (@JacksonMSPolice) June 10, 2017
“The only thing I can see that comes to mind is someone sending a message to someone,” one Jackson resident told MS News Now. “That is the only thing I can see.”
Another resident likened the discovery to something out of “The Twilight Zone,” saying, “I experienced it today in my own hood.”
Police said the head was severed from the body at the neck. Investigators are still working to identify the deceased and will not say if the crime appears to be gang related.
“Whoever committed this crime, rage was an ingredient,” Vance said. “Perhaps some type of message sending … But no, I have never seen anything to occur where a head has been torn or cut from a body.”
