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Creepy ‘cult’ clue
May 28, 2004 — Two dozen yellow flower petals were found around the nude corpse of Juilliard student Sarah Fox, forming an eerie semicircle on the left side of her body, investigators revealed yesterday.
In addition to the bizarre, cult-like floral arrangement, the corpse was left on its back, making it appear that the third-year drama student was asleep.
“She was left in a position of repose by the killer,” a source said.
The petals, fresh and some still on the vine, were from a tulip tree. They were found in a 12-foot radius from Fox’s head to her feet in the woods of Inwood Hill Park in upper Manhattan.
Investigators — consulting with Detective Marcos Quinones, an NYPD cult expert — are looking into whether the killer returned after the crime to place the flowers as a bizarre personal or cult ritual.
A botanist called to the scene when the body was found Tuesday agreed with detectives that the flowers had to have been placed by the killer.
But a botanist from the New York Botanical Gardens — who joined the investigation yesterday — believes the flowers may have fallen and been blown into the extraordinary pattern, an NYPD spokesman said.
A police official countered, “A botanist can tell you about flowers but not crime scenes. The flowers are too heavy to be blown.”
The case is further complicated because the killer took all the clothes and items Fox is known to have had — spandex workout pants, a white T-shirt, sneakers and a CD player.
Police suspect the killer took them to hide any potential evidence of his identity, as trophies of the slaying or for both reasons.
Authorities believe that Fox, 21, was jogging in the park near her Inwood apartment on May 19 when she was accosted by her attacker, who took the petite blonde to a secluded area that he knew.
The body’s severe decomposition has made it impossible for authorities to determine if she was sexually assaulted or if there were any defensive wounds, which would indicate she fought back, said the NYPD spokesman.
The manner of her death, as well as possible ritualistic elements of the crime scene, suggest to some investigators that a sex-obsessed psychopath killed the south New Jersey native.
The spokesman denied earlier reports the woman’s legs were left apart. Another source said they were in line with her shoulders.
Fox’s body was found Tuesday by volunteer searchers in what police said was a difficult spot to access, since it is not linked to any of several narrow paths nearby. It’s an open space within an overgrown area.
“She’s left to be found,” said a law-enforcement source. “It’s a perfect spot. How did he know it? There’s nowhere to walk, there wasn’t a visible path. You have to know it’s there,”
More than 250 police recruits planned to do a tight-grid search of the area today for Fox’s belongings and any new clues.
Fox’s family remained in seclusion in New Jersey, where a shrine of candles and flowers was erected at her mother’s home, similar to one that has gone up in the lobby of the aspiring actress’s Isham Street apartment building.
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese, Philip Messing and Jamie Schram
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