Hispanic woman found dead in New York park was hit in the head

An autopsy determined that Marie Lydia Ramos died from a blow to the head, so the case was now considered a homicide, according to the New York police.

The 46-year-old woman was found dead inside Highland Park near Highland Blvd. and Vermont Place in Brooklyn by police officers responding to a 911 call around 5:30 p.m. on July 5, the Daily News reported.

It is unclear where the crime took place. A forensic examination determined that Ramos was struck in the back of the head with a heavy object and then her body was dumped in the park. Detectives are tracing her movements before her death. The victim lived in Crown Heights.

No arrests have been made. Anyone with information is asked to call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). They can also be reached at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by texting 274637 (CRIMES) followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.

In a similar case, this week a NYC Parks Department worker was charged with fatally shooting a migrant in a hate crime, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced.

Last week, a woman was found burned to death in a park in Upper Manhattan. It is common to find whole or parts of bodies in public places in New York and nearby areas, and it sometimes takes time to identify the victims.

Earlier this month, a dismembered body was found burning in a shopping cart under a bridge in Yonkers and was later linked to other remains found in an apartment in the Bronx.

Last month Angel Sardina (63), a drug dealer on parole, was charged with shooting dead an elderly Hispanic crack dealer next to the chess tables in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, Lower Manhattan (NYC).

In late July, two bodies were discovered in wooded areas outside New York City: one in a park in Yonkers and another on Long Island. Also last month, a woman was found dead with her head shot inside an abandoned sleeping bag in Midtown East, Manhattan (NYC) and her roommate was later arrested as a suspect.

In May, a human head was found floating in Jamaica Bay, Queens. Earlier that month, a man was found dead floating in waters near the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Lower Manhattan.

Days later, human remains found submerged in a creek in New Jersey were identified as those of Charles Murphy, a man who had been missing since 1982, prosecutors said. In April, a case that had been open for nearly 39 years was also closed in New Jersey: the newborn found dead in a bag in a park on Christmas Eve 1984.

Between February 29 and early March of this year, two dissected human bodies were found in wooded areas of Long Island (NY). They were later identified as Malcolm Craig Brown (53) and his partner Donna Conneely (59) and a cousin of his was arrested along with three other people.

In January 2021, human remains were found in a park in Staten Island along with a calendar from 2005. Months later, it was determined that the bones were those of a short man (between 4’11” and 5’5″), possibly Asian or Hispanic, who had been murdered on an unspecified date. But so far, the victim has not been identified and there have been no arrests.

In the fall of 2020, two newborn twins were abandoned dead in a high-traffic residential area in the Bronx (NYC) and more than three years later, no one has been arrested in the case.