Headless animals in box found near jail

TAMPA, Fla., July 7 (UPI) -- Authorities in Florida say they're investigating a cardboard box filled with headless animals left outside a Tampa-area jail.

The box was discovered less than a week after a cow's tongue punctured with nearly 100 nails was found in a box at the county courthouse. Authorities said they were investigating whether there is a link between the two incidents, the St. Petersburg Times reported Wednesday.

Police said they thought the mutilated animals might be connected to Santeria, a blend of African religions and Catholicism that uses animal sacrifice as part of its practices, and might have been intended for an inmate at the jail.

"It wasn't left there by mistake," Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman Larry McKinnon said.

Inside the white cardboard box found near the front entrance to the jail were the bodies of a small white goat, two baby chicks, two roosters and a dove, McKinnon said.

However, Mozella Mitchell, chairwoman of religious studies at the University of South Florida, said that in Santeria animals offered up for sacrifice are normally cooked and eaten after elaborate ceremonies.

Leaving headless carcasses at the jail, she said, "is not a legitimate practice. It's a prank."

Mercedes Cros Sandoval, a retired anthropology professor and Santeria expert at Miami-Dade College, said one likely explanation for the cow's tongue didn't require an anthropology degree.

"A tongue with some nails in it," she said, "is 'Keep your mouth shut.'"