by professorpan » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:16 pm
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060725/NEWS/607250321">www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../607250321</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>6 skulls, severed hand lead to stripper arrest<br><br>By CHAD HEMENWAY <br>Staff Writer<br><br>SOUTH PLAINFIELD -- A severed hand inside a mason jar filled with formaldehyde and six human skulls found by police Friday at a Diana Drive home have led to the arrest of an exotic dancer, police said.<br><br>Linda E. Kay, 31, was charged with improper disposition of human remains.<br><br>Police responded Friday to a call at 28 Diana Drive concerning an emotionally disturbed man threatening to hurt himself. A caller told dispatchers a man living there was trying to kill himself with a hammer, police said.<br><br>When officers arrived, Kay refused to let them in, South Plainfield police Chief John Ferraro said. The officers forced their way past her, he said.<br><br>Police learned the man who reportedly wanted to harm himself was not in the home. They found the severed hand in a foot-tall mason jar on a table in the basement and the skulls in a second-floor bedroom, Ferraro said.<br><br>The Middlesex County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the skulls and hand were human.<br><br>Human skulls can be readily purchased on the Internet. But the hand, which Ferraro described as "large and crudely severed," is a more bizarre discovery.<br><br>The cut was jagged and bone fragments were present, authorities said.<br><br>"Our main concern is finding out where the hand came from," Ferraro said.<br><br>Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Judson Hamlin said the hand is undergoing testing, including fingerprint analysis. The hand appears to be that of a white male, authorities said.<br><br>Police said Kay is not cooperating. She has refused to tell them where or how she obtained the body parts, police said.<br><br>A man speaking to reporters outside the home Monday said he lives there but didn't know how Kay got the body parts.<br><br>"I think she has a friend who is a medical examiner or something who does autopsies," Jason Lafontaine said.<br><br>He said residents named the severed hand "Freddy."<br><br>"That's what everybody called it," said Lafontaine, 20, of the hand.<br><br>Lafontaine said the human skulls were displayed neatly with other animal skulls he believed were souvenirs.<br><br>"I heard them talking about the skulls once, about how much money they could get for them," Lafontaine said.<br><br>On the police report, Kay, who is single, listed her occupation as "exotic dancer" and place of employment as Hott 22, a strip club on Route 22 in Union. It bills itself as the only fully nude BYOB strip club in the area and uses the slogan "Where all we wear is a smile."<br><br>Several women and a man seen entering Hott 22 on Monday afternoon declined to answer questions about the incident.<br><br>Kay was released after posting a $100,000 bail bond. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison on the third-degree charge.<br><br>Capt. Paul Brembt of the South Plainfield Police Department said that on other calls at the home, police encountered items used in occult practices, such as capes, costumes and things bearing occult symbols.<br><br>Lafontaine said he has been living at the house for about two months. He used to visit the house regularly and "took a liking to it." Lafontaine's mother and the women who live in the house knew each other as exotic dancers, he said.<br><br>Lafontaine said he does not know who owns the unkempt house within a small, 20-year-old development of contemporary homes. Grass grows long in the front and back yards, and hedges are overgrown.<br><br>"All I know is they've all been friends. They grew up together," he said. "They're never home."<br><br>Lafontaine said he came back from a camping trip late Sunday afternoon to find the house empty.<br><br>While on the way to his camping trip, Lafontaine received a cell phone call and text message from an acquaintance who said she had called the police to report that Sean McDonough, who also lived at the house, threatened suicide, he said.<br><br>"I couldn't really hear her to understand what was going on," Lafontaine said. "She just said, 'It (reporting the suicide threat) was the right thing to do.'"<br><br>Lafontaine said he shares the home with his little brother, McDonough, Kay and a woman named Paulina. McDonough was arrested on an outstanding warrant and remains in county jail, Lafontaine said.<br><br>Lafontaine also confirmed what many neighbors said about the residents of the house.<br><br>"There are cops here a lot," he said. "People complain about the music blasting."<br><br>Many of the people at parties at the home are from Hott 22, Lafontaine said. Bouncers have been at the house, and the women who live in the house dance at the club, he said.<br><br>Neighbors said police are at the house on average once a week for calls ranging from garbage piling high, domestic disturbances and shouting in the streets to loud, late-night singing from the home's karaoke machine.<br><br>Ferraro said police have been called to the home on seven occasions since March. One involved an outstanding warrant. Two were for welfare checks, and one for a missing person believed to be there but who was not. One was a nuisance complaint about fireworks being shot off, and one was a rescue squad call for someone having difficulty breathing. None of those calls involved arrests, he said.<br><br>Another was a domestic violence call that Ferraro declined to release information on because of the nature of the investigation.<br><br>Kam Patel, who lives up the street, said he's never spoken to the residents but has seen them regularly in the street at all hours.<br><br>"It's scary," he said. "You never know who is living in your neighborhood, I guess."<br><br>Ferraro is urging anyone with information on the body parts to call Sgt. James Foran at (90<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> 226-7665 or Detective Wendell Born at (90<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> 226-7661.<br><br>Gannett New Jersey writer Ken Serrano contributed to this report. <p></p><i></i>
