Who's Beheading Roosters in East Atlanta?

EAST ATLANTA — A most mysterious case of "fowl" play is afoot in the neighborhood.

On Wednesday, resident Michelle Rice found a decapitated, white-feathered rooster on the corner of Blake and Marbut avenues.

That follows a March finding of another head-severed rooster in an open-topped box on Marbut and McWilliams avenues.

It all started with mysterious fruit drops late last year, Rice told East Atlanta Patch.

"A variety of fresh fruit would appear on various corners," she said. "Marbut and McWilliams, Marbut and Blake and McPherson and Maynard."

And it seems the person behind the fruit drops has a discriminating palate when it comes to picking produce.

"The fruit was in good condition and often in a Whole Foods bag or with a Whole Foods bag nearby," Rice said. "It would be all sorts of things, including apples, oranges, grapefruit, coconuts and I think even kiwis."

At first the fruit sightings were considered amusing.

One of her friends and fellow East Atlanta resident, Susan Barry, even started a Facebook page, What the Fruit, dedicated to the produce drops.

But the decapitations has them concerned, Rice said.

"Two dead animals makes me lose my sense of humor about it. Maybe it's somebody's idea of a joke, maybe it is some form of Santeria," she said.

"We consider it littering at the least and animal cruelty at the worst and wish it would stop."

Atlanta police say it's not so unusual, though a crime analysis of APD Zone 6 found no reported cases in East Atlanta.

"Just from my experience, this is relatively common," APD Sgt. Gregory Lyon told Patch.

He explained in other cases found in the city's northwestern and southwestern quadrants, such incidents were linked to Santeria, an Afro-Caribbean religion that hails from Cuba.

"In Zone 4 and Zone 1, it was not unusual to find headless chickens or goats discarded in random places," he said.