"Severed goat heads keep turning up in nearby Prospect Park," reports Adrien Chen. Was it religious sacrifice? A prank? Something else?
A mysterious flood of goat heads is the only interesting thing that has happened in Park Slope since I moved to the neighborhood three years ago. Yes, the rush to blame a little-understood religion practiced largely by immigrants smacked a bit of lazy xenophobia, but the idea of Park Slope as a hotbed of animal sacrifice, in addition to child-friendly bars, was undeniably intriguing. In a city where everyday occurrences are casually weighed against the events of September 11, 2001, it was shocking to find that so many of my neighbors and I were actually shocked. The goat heads seemed to rear out of some shadow New York City that was even gnarlier than the pre-Guiliani version I'd seen in the movies, and at the edge of Brooklyn's most thoroughly gentrified neighborhood, to boot. When New York asked me to investigate the goat heads, I leapt at the chance. I wanted to see if the world they hinted at lived up to the hype."
His investigation includes a Freedom of Information Law request ("'I'VE SEEN AS MUCH AS SEVEN SQUIRRELS DEAD IN THE PARK,' went one report. 'I'VE SEEN ONE THAT'S DECAPITATED'"), a Vodou priest, and multiple trips to the butcher.