After Dead Body Pulled from Ravine, Haddonfield Neighbors Learn to Cope

"In Haddonfield, these things don't happen...very often," said Commissioner Neal Rochford, Haddonfield's director of public safety, moments after the remains of a 26-year-old Philadelphia man were wheeled away on a gurney. 

Rochford was speaking to the media on a chilly weekday night earlier this week at what police said was the scene of a "suspicious death." Crowds of neighbors milled around the intersection of Narberth and Merion avenues in the early evening Monday, standing behind police caution tape and squinting their eyes to see beyond the high-powered lights that lit up their sleepy neighborhood. 

Detectives Tuesday identified the dead man as Reginald Glover, after releasing photos of his tattooed arm as clues to his identity. Not much has been reported by authorities about how Glover ended up in a ravine in Pennypacker Park, 30 yards behind homes on Narberth and Merion avenues.

Neighbors immediately began processing the information and coming to terms with what may be a wake up call for this secluded community in the wake of the startling discovery.

"I think it's horrible, it's sad, scary. There's a dead person around back." said a woman who lives in the home near where the body was found.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said she was so shaken by the discovery that she invited neighbors in to share a bottle of wine while they watched police searching the woods behind her house.

She said she has lived here for decades and raised her children here. Although her house has been robbed three times, nothing like this, a dead body, has happened before, she said. 

A neighbor came to greet the woman on Tuesday morning. She wrestled with her 3-year-old son while asking how the woman was doing. The neighbor, who also declined to be identified, said she still felt safe in the neighborhood.

"Crime happens everywhere," the woman said. "I'm no more affected by this than if the man had been found in the city."

Her husband pulled out of their driveway about 10 minutes earlier. He, too, was taking things in stride. 

"It's a bit surprising. This is a quiet neighborhood," said the 40-year-old man, a technology company executive who lives across the street from where the body was found. "The only people who come back here are the people who live here. Most likely, whoever it was, came there came from the park, not through the neighborhood. He would have been seen. Everybody knows everyone here."

The man, who preferred his name not be published, concluded that he still felt safe in his leafy, secluded enclave.

"I've spent a lot of years living in a lot of places around the world that are a lot more dangerous than this," he said before pulling off in his Volvo sedan.