Massachusetts officials are investigating the death of a woman who was found unresponsive on a bike path in Springfield on Tuesday.
Springfield Police Department spokesman Ryan Walsh said officers responded to reports of unresponsive people near the bike path in the 1500 block of Hall of Fame Avenue.
Upon arrival, officers found a woman who was declared dead soon after.
“The SPD murder unit, under Captain Trent Duda’s command, is working with the @hampdenda murder squad to conduct an unmanned death investigation, awaiting an autopsy by the prosecutor,” Walsh said.
The death of the woman comes amid rumors circulating online about a possible New England serial killer, mostly after the deaths of seven and eight people between March and April in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. As of Wednesday, authorities had not announced any relationship between the deaths of the eight victims.
Walsh told Fox News Digital that the cause of death would be determined by a medical examiner, adding, “That’s exactly the only rumors on the internet.”
Rumors began to spread on Facebook groups called “New England serial killers.” For the past two months, human remains have been found in the chillary New Haven, Norwalk, Groton, Connecticut. Foster, Rhode Island. Framingham, Plymouth, now Springfield, Massachusetts. Some social media users say these discoveries of human remains, particularly women’s bodies, across three adjacent states, could indicate serial killers.
However, Connecticut State Police told Fox News Digital last week that “at this time there is no information to suggest a connection to similar findings, and at this time there is no known threat to the public.”
Peter Valentin, chairman of the forensic medical school at Henry C. Lee, University of New Haven’s University of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, told Fox News Digital that police responded to reports of people who were not responding.
“If someone is in full bone bortis, then you don’t need to find a pulse, as Mortis’ strict presence means they are clearly dead. So this is a very recent death.[NewEnglandserialkiller”Valentinsaid[NewEnglandserialkiller”Valentinsaid
Some of the bodies found in three New England states in the past two months have been identified as unharmed, but some have deteriorated in that it takes time for authorities to determine who the victim was. In other words, the bodies were placed over two months, but that does not indicate that the victim died almost simultaneously.
Valentin noted that Springfield police have not yet decided whether the woman’s death was a murder.
“I’m interested in what’s been retrieved around my body,” he said. “The article is so stuffed toys, so there may have been tools to suggest an activity that is being emphasized (probably wrongly) to the investigator. It is filled with very careful language (which is certainly taken from a police press release).
At least four victims in these eight cases — two in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts — have been identified as women. Police also believe that the victims found in the Connecticut murder are women in their 40s and 60s, but her identity has not been confirmed.
As first reported by MassLive.com, the New England serial killer Facebook group, which currently has 65,300 members, has acquired over 15,000 new members this month.
According to search engine data, Google’s search for “New England Serial Killer” was spiked around April 7th.
