Tragedy Strikes! Flower Butcher Rampages On Dahill Road
Murder! Mayhem! Magnolias!
A brazen criminal is on a rampage near Dahill Road, beheading the carefully tended tulips of neighbor Diane Pagen and leaving the disembodied buds as a demoralizing force to future blooms. Pagen emailed us about the tragic killing spree, which now spans two spring seasons.
Pagen writes:
Last season, I was thrilled to watch my tulips come up beautifully in front of my apartment building at Dahill Road bet 65th and Ave O, where I have lived since January 2012. The thrills turned to dismay as I woke up one morning to find one of the flowers vandalized, the flower cut and laid carefully in the dirt, as if to mock all the effort it took to plant it. From that moment, the sicko flower murderer persisted, every few days cutting a new one. I even filed a criminal mischief report with the 62nd precinct–bringing the unfortunate flower to the precinct as evidence. The kind officer offered her sympathy, but admitted it was unlikely fingerprints would be taken from it. Instead, she got a vase and water and displayed the tulip on her desk.
This spring, the tulips have had a rough time of it–a too long, too cold winter, and a frost after a week of warm weather. Then, a trash fire on Dahill Road, caused by a careless smoker in April, torched two parked cars and singed the just-emerging leaves of this year’s tulips. Last week’s torrential day-long downpour tested the flowers mettle even more. Still, they persevered, and are beautiful.
But last week, the flower destroyer reappeared and struck, beheading one red tulip. The day after, I went to Manhattan to party and when I sauntered home in the wee hours, I was horrified to see he’d struck again, brazenly cutting four more in one swoop, for a total of five destroyed tulips this season.
Last night I tried to keep watch all night, but the heel did not appear.
Given my training in psychology and feminist thought, it is difficult not to construct a narrative here that connects the castration of our tulips with the assailant’s feelings of powerlessness in society and loss of testosterone–his own castration–if you will. Or he may suffer from Napoleon syndrome…
We need all Bensonhurst eyes on Dahill Road until this madman is caught. The gladiolas, set to come up in June, musn’t suffer at his hands.
The NYPD’s Crime Scene Investigations Unit has not yet visited the scene. Some in the neighborhood wonder if the crime would be taken more seriously if it were an adorable child, leading some (Ed. — None) to cry foul.
About that car fire Pagen mentioned, it happened last month. She explains:
A smoking neighbor from next door had a smoke outside on that very windy day about a month ago, and flicked his cigarette into the trash that was piled outside for pickup (it was a Sunday). It caught fire, and since it was next to the curb, it lit up a parked car, then another, then a tree, then the wind blew the fire across my garden, singing some flowers, and burned down my neighbors trees.
All for a smoke.
Apparently, the charred remains are still taking up parking spots – although it has been converted into a public health message:
