There's New Jersey's Pine Barrens, New York's East River and Baltimore's Leakin Park.
Infamous body dumping grounds all.
Do we add to the list the Inner and Northwest harbors and other waterways that wash up against downtown, Federal Hill, Canton and Locust Point? More bodies have surfaced from those watery graves in March (four) than in Leakin Park in all of this year (one).
FOR THE RECORD
Because of incorrect information supplied by the Baltimore Police Department, a Crime & Courts column published Wednesday provided an incorrect age for Ryan M. Davis, whose body was found March 9 in the Inner Harbor near Fells Point. He was 33.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
There was the body near the Broadway Pier in Fells Point on March 9; the body near the paddle boats in the Inner Harbor on March 19; the body near Thames Street in Fells Point on March 22; and the body near Fort McHenry on March 27. Two were men, ages 21 and 26; the others, a man and a woman, remain unidentified.
Even in Baltimore - where we try to stop violence and at the same time cash in on its television appeal - this seems a bit much. Bodies do float to the surface in the warm days of spring. "The only thing that is unusual is the time frame," Officer Troy Harris, a city police spokesman, told me.
Investigators have not determined how the people died. Some could have been in the water for weeks, months or even years and were dumped or fell in a long way from the harbor. I am in no way suggesting that the mob or drug dealers have suddenly discovered a new place to dispose of people caught up in their work-related disputes. To put things in proper perspective: The man found dead in Leakin Park in February had been shot.
Still, news of bodies floating in the harbor is a bit unsettling. I ventured down to Fells Point to see how the community was coping, only to find Baltimore once again transformed into Hollywood's favorite crime scene.
Crews from Fox-TV had taken over the Broadway Pier - Thames Street was blanketed in a tangle of wires, lights and lined with trucks, cops directing traffic and men with walkie-talkies barking orders and keeping onlookers away. They were filming a scene from as-yet-untitled pilot show about investigators who use reincarnation to solve current-day problems and crime.
The irony is so thick my head hurts. I saw men carrying cameras sporting jackets emblazoned with Homicide: Life on the Street working in the shadows of their old stomping grounds, the building on the water that served as police headquarters for the long-dead show (the blue police insignia is still there). Across the street at the Daily Grind, assistant manager Lindsey Shanklin noted how exciting it was that they were filming in the neighborhood again, and that one of the actors is a regular.
