Officer unravels unusual cases (with the occult)

News-Journal Online ^ | 11.28.05 | EILEEN ZAFFIRO

[Coleus]

DAYTONA BEACH -- Most police officers have a pretty interesting collection of stories by the time they retire. But Bob Engborg's special training in religions ranging from paganism to Satanism has led him to some particularly unusual cases in his three decades of police work. About five years ago, Engborg helped in a case with two local women who worked as phlebotomists, drawing peoples' blood in doctors' offices and hospitals. The young women also liked to drink blood, so they flirted with men at local bars and convinced some to let them draw their blood, he said.

He also helped get to the bottom of a rotting, severed goat's head found on an oyster bed in the Halifax River in 1997. The head was found wrapped in a towel along with a cloth doll, two calabash fruits jabbed with needles, two large black olives, $6 in U.S. coins and a picture of a Roman solider with Spanish writing on the back.

Engborg linked the package to Palo Mayombe, which blends African shaman religion with elements of magic and Catholicism. The package found in the river, he believes, was part of a spell conjured up by a very experienced practitioner of Palo Mayombe.

Because the First Amendment protects animal sacrifices done for religious purposes, the only crime was creating a health hazard by disposing of the dead animal in the river, he said.

In 1998, he helped solve a case in Bradenton that began when a fisherman made a gruesome discovery: a severed hand.

Fingerprints led police to a recently deceased man, so investigators exhumed the body. In the abdominal cavity of the man, they found 12 voodoo dolls with incisions near the mouths, a pin under the left arm of each and handwritten notes.

"The person who did this believed they could control what the person said, and the pins under the arms were near the heart to inflict pain, to hurt someone," Engborg explained. "This was black magic, voodoo."

With his help, Bradenton police figured out that a voodoo priestess was behind the strange find. She ran a funeral home, and had used the man's body in her attempt to put other local funeral homes out of business, Engborg said.

Although much of the religious paraphernalia Engborg finds can appear to be a threat to someone's life, some of it can't be used as evidence in court, he said.

In the case of the Bradenton funeral home director, "Her threat was for the spirit world to hurt these people," Engborg explained. "She wasn't conspiring. Her only crime was tampering with human remains."

[Bogey78O]

Bradenton police figured out that a voodoo priestess was behind the strange find. She ran a funeral home, and had used the man's body in her attempt to put other local funeral homes out of business, Engborg said.

Backfired a lil there.

[txhurl]

I remember this! I remember her interview to be oddly persuasive, too.

World we live in.

[Triggerhippie]

After reading this, someone at FDLE just had an stroke.