"It’s witchcraft, I’ll say that right now": Ritualistic murder in Pensacola

I don't know if this is the right forum for this. Could be 'General Skepticism and the Paranormal'. Could be 'Trial and Errors' (for now, mostly for the error part —but I imagine it might lead to some sort of trial).

There was a triple murder a few days ago in the westernmost part of the Florida panhandle (I think it would be considered Pensacola). The idiot sheriff of Escambia county has determined based on "initial research" that this is a ritualistic killing.

Quoting Sheriff David Morgan:

Quote:

The method of the murder — blunt force trauma, slit throats, positioning of bodies — and our person of interest has some ties to a faith or religion that is indicative of that. The time of the death on Tuesday also coincides with what’s referred to as a blue moon, which occurs every three years.

Worrisome to me is if the ritualistic nature of the crime, as allegedly inferred from "initial research", is what led them to pursue that particular "person of interest" (translation: he's a suspect but our evidence is so shaky we don't yet want to be on record saying it) rather than the other way around (which would be odd as well because when we have a murder a few days away from Christmas and the "person of interest" is a Christian no one would call it a Christian, Christmas ritual killing).

Let's be realistic here. A "ritualistic murder" tells me a bunch of deranged people were trying to reproduce something "cool looking" they saw once in a horror movie with occult themes. What is not a ritualistic killing is shooting someone in the head, bashing in people's head's with a claw hammer and then finishing them off by slitting their throats. Likewise, tying such a "ritual" to a date of significance (are blue moons even of significance to any religious or pseudo-religious group?*) should involve actually carrying it out on said date of significance rather than three days earlier. As for the positioning of the bodies, I think that there's already enough information available to question the competence of Sheriff David Morgan and his investigating detectives so I have to provisionally consider it to be bullpoop until shown otherwise.

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* I ask because it sounds precisely like the sort of a thing someone looking for a link to "witchcraft" might think would have ritualistic significance but which likely doesn't since a blue moon has no particular astronomical/phenological/astrological significance (I'm guessing on the astrological) being a phenomenon which is strictly an artifact of arbitrary calendar design (there's no astronomical/phenological/astrological reason why a particular month should have 28, 29, 30 or 31 days —which means what is a blue moon in one arbitrary calendar would not be a blue moon in a different arbitrary calendar).

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