Two Bodies Found In Central Park In Less Than 24 Hours
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Two men were found dead in two different bodies of water in Central Park in less than 24 hours.
A park worker found the body of a man believed to be in his 30s floating in a pond known as Swan Lake near East 59th Street and Fifth Avenue around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said it appears the body had been in the water for at most two weeks and there were no obvious signs of trauma.
"Again very little decomposition compared to yesterday," he said.
Investigators found identification in the man's pants pocket, but police are not releasing the man's name pending further confirmation, Boyce said.
The discovery comes a day after a maintenance worker found a badly decomposed body in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir near 90th Street and Fifth Avenue before 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The body of the man, believed to be in his 20s or 30s, had been in the water for at least a month.
An examination of the body also did not reveal any obvious signs of trauma, Boyce said.
The medical examiner is working to determine the cause of death.
Boyce said while the discoveries are unusual, police don't suspect foul play and the cases are not connected.
"We don't believe there's criminality in either one of these cases right now cause there's no trauma to the body," Boyce said.
As CBS2's Hazel Sanchez reported, some parkgoers walking near Swan Lake felt uneasy seeing the police activity Wednesday morning.
"We just got off the subway right now and saw all the stuff here. We had planned on walking through the park, and now we're going to walk around the park," Kenny Hays of Atlanta, Georgia.
"It's absolutely horrifying and shocking. And it's really something that you'd expect to see in New York in the 1970s, not in 2017. So I'm very, very sad to hear that," said midtown resident Jessica Bowen who walks her 17-month-old son through the park nearly every day.
"It's very sad. Sad for the person. Sad for the people's family," parkgoer Zillah Janes said.
The investigation is ongoing. The medical examiner will now determine the exact causes of death, and hopefully the identities, bringing closure to anyone who may be missing the two men.
