Advice about Royal Palm Beach area, specifically the area next to Preservation Park ( Sweet bay road) (violent crime)

[mckinley120]

On the map(satellite) view this looks like such a nice area, especially with Preservation Park. My question is if this is truly the case or if this is an appearances are deceiving instance? And if you're familiar with the area, could you tell me how family-friendly it is; I mean, that you wouldn't hesitate walking around the park and neighborhood when the sun has set. Does the park get crowded or do you basically have it to yourself on weekdays?

Thanks

[City Guy997S]

It was an ideal place to dump/burn a body until a cop noticed the fire.......


Monday, December 24, 2007

ROYAL PALM BEACH — A burning corpse turned up on the grounds of a Catholic church, hours before worshippers arrived for Sunday's first Mass.

Parishioners at Our Lady Queen of the Apostles gave up their parking spots to homicide detectives and prayed for the woman. She was found just south of the parking lot at Our Lady Queen of the Apostles, where a charred patch of grass was etched with her silhouette.

Detectives said she was 15 to 25 years old, a slender, well manicured, strawberry blonde who was 5-foot-2 with blue eyes and a flowery tattoo on her lower back. It was not known Sunday whether she died on church property or was dumped, then torched. Detectives have not identified her.

She showed no other obvious injuries, said sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller. The woman seemed to have burned for a short time; only her left side had caught fire.

A sheriff's deputy heading south on Crestwood Boulevard spotted a fiery glow at 3:15 a.m. and pulled into the church lot.

"He could see right away there was a body," Miller said.

She was found under a palmetto palm, just over a wooden foot bridge in an unlighted area scattered with tall pines. The deputy used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. The woman was dead.

Church officials told detectives that teenagers sometimes sneak back there at night, Miller said.

Helicopters buzzing overhead woke the priests at about 4 a.m., but investigators had little to share with them. The Rev. Yves Geffrard, parochial vicar, said he asked everyone at Mass to pray for the woman.

"It is a person, a human being, and when something happens like that, it really touches all of us," he said. "Even though we don't know the person, we know it is a person."

Deputies and church volunteers directed traffic complicated by the caravan of crime scene vans passing through the parking lot.

Royal Palm Beach hasn't had a murder in at least a decade, state crime reports show. Most parishioners live nearby, and some worried that the woman might be someone they knew.

"Like everybody else, I'm just shocked," said Village Councilman Matty Mattioli, who heard about it when he arrived for the 8 a.m. Mass.

Rosemarie Meinsen said, "Everybody's so friendly here. I get chills up my spine thinking about what happened."

The body was found in an area used for praying the Stations of the Cross during the season of Lent.

"That's the worst thing," said one woman helping direct traffic around the crime scene.

"It's church grounds, and they knew that."

Detectives can be reached at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Violent Crimes Division, (561) 688-4070, or Crime Stoppers (800) 458-TIPS.