Resolved NJ - Alpine, Bag of Human Bones, Stateline Lookout Overlook, Jul'19 - N/A

[PastTense]

"A bag of what officials believe are human bones was found at a snack stand in New Jersey on Monday. It happened at the Stateline Lookout scenic overlook in Alpine.

The Bergen County prosecutor’s office says employees of the Stateline Lookout snack stand arrived for work around 8 a.m. and found a plastic bag hanging on the door.

There appeared to be bones in the bag, so the employees contacted the Palisades Interstate Parkway police department.

Officers arrived at the snack stand and inspected the contents of the bag. They concluded the bones were similar to human bones and contacted the cold case unit and medical examiner’s office."
Bag Of Suspected Human Bones Found At NJ Snack Stand

 

[b741ma]

"A bag of what officials believe are human bones was found at a snack stand in New Jersey on Monday. It happened at the Stateline Lookout scenic overlook in Alpine.

The Bergen County prosecutor’s office says employees of the Stateline Lookout snack stand arrived for work around 8 a.m. and found a plastic bag hanging on the door.

There appeared to be bones in the bag, so the employees contacted the Palisades Interstate Parkway police department.

Officers arrived at the snack stand and inspected the contents of the bag. They concluded the bones were similar to human bones and contacted the cold case unit and medical examiner’s office."
Bag Of Suspected Human Bones Found At NJ Snack Stand

Please keep me updated on this story. Do the police have any ideas where these bones comes from? How many peoples' bones are there?

 

[Inthedetails]

Call me crazy, but my first thought is that this has to do with Santeria.

jmopiniononly

 

[Inthedetails]

"There was a man who leapt to his death last week from the lookout, the Daily Voice reported, which is almost 500 feet above the Hudson River across from Yonkers. It is not yet known if the remains are from the man."

Bag of Human Bones Found Hanging on NJ Snack Stand Door

 

[Inthedetails]

Nothing new, but video shows the location where the bones were found:

Authorities Search For Who Left Bag Of Bones At Concession Stand

 

[deedee21]

Nothing new, but video shows the location where the bones were found:

Authorities Search For Who Left Bag Of Bones At Concession Stand

Strange case.
Would someone unrelated to the death of this person leave their remains on the door of a business.
A killers idea of a prank perhaps?

 

[Inthedetails]

Strange case.
Would someone unrelated to the death of this person leave their remains on the door of a business.
A killers idea of a prank perhaps?

Unless we hear differently, I'm thinking this indeed has something to do with Santeria. I'm not even sure they are human bones - could be deer, which are in the park. Or, human bones from the black market, I suppose. I really don't think these are bones from anyone who was killed or even who died in the area.

Leaving the bones in a bag in a park....just seems like a Santeria thing. Animal bodies or parts, bones, fruit, etc. are sometimes left in area parks as part of a Santeria ritual. I don't know much about it, but this has the same vibe to me, especially since we aren't hearing anything from authorities about it.

jmo

 

[da fino]

it is not yet confirmed they are human bones, basically no new news in this story, but some interesting information about the process of evaluating the bones:

Identifying the bones found at N.J. scenic overlook may be lengthy effort, expert says

 

[b741ma]

Strange case.
Would someone unrelated to the death of this person leave their remains on the door of a business.
A killers idea of a prank perhaps?

There's a good chance it will turn out to be far less nefarious then it seems. A few years back they were doing an excavation at a London house where Ben Franklin lived when he was a Diplomat in the UK and in the basement they found human bones. People freaked out and started to wonder if one of America's founding fathers was a serial killer. But after an investigation they found out why there were bones in Franklin's basement and as it turns out there was nothing nefarious about it. Franklin had allowed his basement to be used by medical students for illegal autopsies. The British government had banned performing autopsies because they considered them sacrilegious and Franklin realizing the benefits of autopsies allowed them to be performed in his basement.

 

[margarita25]

Obviously someone wanted to horrify someone and make sure these bones were found, IF they are determined to be human.

 

[beatrixpotter]

There's a good chance it will turn out to be far less nefarious then it seems. A few years back they were doing an excavation at a London house where Ben Franklin lived when he was a Diplomat in the UK and in the basement they found human bones. People freaked out and started to wonder if one of America's founding fathers was a serial killer. But after an investigation they found out why there were bones in Franklin's basement and as it turns out there was nothing nefarious about it. Franklin had allowed his basement to be used by medical students for illegal autopsies. The British government had banned performing autopsies because they considered them sacrilegious and Franklin realizing the benefits of autopsies allowed them to be performed in his basement.

I think there is a world of difference between finding historical bones buried and finding a bag of bones left on the door handle of a snack stand. Even if the bones are old why the heck would someone just leave a bag of bones at a snack stand?! I mean we found some human bones recently in the storage building of an ancestor. He was a medical doctor however and this was from a much earlier time period. If we'd suddenly found a bag of bones on our door knob though it would be beyond weird. One is a reasonable place to find such and the other not even close.

 

[Inthedetails]

Has anyone seen reports of the color of the bag that contained the bones?

tia

 

[Inthedetails]

<modsnipped quoted post>

Across the river (and not too far upriver) from NYC, where Santeria is definitely practiced in public parks.

jmo

 

[TristanP]

Oh, hell nah.

 

[SpanishMossAntiques]

Call me crazy, but my first thought is that this has to do with Santeria.

jmopiniononly

While it's true that Santeria uses bones, fetuses, etc in their practice, more common are things like dead animals, feathers, sea shells, coconuts, animal blood, etc in casting spells. I used to work in Loss Prevention on the West Side of Chicago, where Santeria was relatively common. One day I came to work only to find a bunch of 5-gallon buckets filled with blood and organs. We couldn't tell if they were human organs (some were large), so the Homicide Unit got involved and the Medical Examiner as well. They organs were discovered to all be from dogs, and the blood was from goats and chickens. The practitioner lived several blocks away from the store, and one of our employees had recently dated the man and then broke up with him - which he clearly did not respond to well. This kind of thing happened a few times after that involving totally different people, but it was strange; these folks had odd things wind up happening to them... Anyway, years later and I'm police in the Florida Keys; my partner and I get a call about coconuts, dead seagulls and chickens, seashells, etc all arranged on a resident's porch - which was covered in blood. My partner who was White but who had grown up in a Cuban community (where Santeria is common) said to me, "oh no - we can't touch that otherwise we'll be cursed". I agreed! Both of us had seen this before - an again, as unbelievable as it may sound, those on the receiving end of a Santeria curse or anyone who touches the cursed objects seems to be quite negatively affected. So, we called the waste management team out there - they did not touch anything, instead using various devices to pick up the coconuts, birds, etc to discard them! They said to me, "yeah, we're not stupid - we're not touching that stuff and getting cursed"!

 

[PastTense]

"There was a man who leapt to his death last week from the lookout, the Daily Voice reported, which is almost 500 feet above the Hudson River across from Yonkers. It is not yet known if the remains are from the man."

That would not be possible unless the person who found the bones carefully removed all the meat, skin, organs... of the jumper. I would assume a bag of bones would be from a person who died several years ago.

 

[PastTense]

"The bones found in a plastic bag hanging from a door in Alpine earlier this week were confirmed Wednesday as human remains, authorities said...

The person who left the bag on the door directed authorities to more bones and “personal items” found at the site, though a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office did not elaborate on the other items. Where exactly the additional bones were found was not revealed by authorities.

The person aiding authorities is not suspected in any crimes, the Prosecutor's Office said...

The bones will be submitted to a lab for DNA testing and compared to a missing persons database, the Prosecutor’s Office stated."
Bones found in bag hanging on door at State Line Lookout in Alpine confirmed as human

 

[JrzyGirl70]

FYI: Your link is for Alpine in CA. This case is in New Jersey.

jmo

@ In the Details - I'm sorry but you are mistaken, my posting is for Alpine, New Jersey, if you look at the home addresses you will see they clearly say New Jersey. The Map provided shows very distinctly the Hudson River splitting the NJ and NY.

I worked for 18 years in Bergen County, New Jersey before our office moved and have customers in that area so am very much aware of the demographics.

Across the river (and not too far upriver) from NYC, where Santeria is definitely practiced in public parks.

As I also stated in my previous post if you go a few towns away Santeria is very much practiced. As is evident in the Botanica stores, where you can buy all sorts of supplies for the practice.

 

[Inthedetails]

@ In the Details - I'm sorry but you are mistaken, my posting is for Alpine, New Jersey, if you look at the home addresses you will see they clearly say New Jersey. The Map provided shows very distinctly the Hudson River splitting the NJ and NY.

I worked for 18 years in Bergen County, New Jersey before our office moved and have customers in that area so am very much aware of the demographics.

Across the river (and not too far upriver) from NYC, where Santeria is definitely practiced in public parks.

As I also stated in my previous post if you go a few towns away Santeria is very much practiced. As is evident in the Botanica stores, where you can buy all sorts of supplies for the practice.

Sorry, but when I clicked on the link, it was clearly California. Not sure what happened with the link for me, but that's what I saw - tried it twice. (I live nearby too so I don't really need the info anyway - will be helpful to others though.)

jmo

Edited to add: I seem to have upset you with my link-glitch reporting, and for that I am sorry.

 

[Inthedetails]

"The bones found in a plastic bag hanging from a door in Alpine earlier this week were confirmed Wednesday as human remains, authorities said...

The person who left the bag on the door directed authorities to more bones and “personal items” found at the site, though a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office did not elaborate on the other items. Where exactly the additional bones were found was not revealed by authorities.

The person aiding authorities is not suspected in any crimes, the Prosecutor's Office said...

The bones will be submitted to a lab for DNA testing and compared to a missing persons database, the Prosecutor’s Office stated."
Bones found in bag hanging on door at State Line Lookout in Alpine confirmed as human

Not what I expected....wonder what in the world happened?