Some Bowie residents are upset about a neighbor’s Halloween decoration, which portrays a body hanging upside down from a tree in a garbage bag. News4’s Derrick Ward reports.
Some residents in a Bowie, Maryland, neighborhood think that one neighbor's Halloween decorations went too far and want the disturbing display taken down.
Video shows what looks like a body wrapped up in a black garbage bag dangling upside-down from a tree. The imagery of the decoration reminds some of a lynching.
One resident said that although she's not against Halloween, she doesn't find it appropriate.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
"I was definitely frightened by it," the resident said. "It was definitely eye-catching [and] not something that you would typically see for a Halloween decoration."
The homeowner who put up the display told NBC Washington it was just a decoration. He bought it online on Amazon.
Juan Estrada, a resident, said he understands going all out for Halloween. When his kids were younger, he used to decorate all the time – from displaying a fake severed head to creating a crime scene with his car.
"I put an effigy down underneath, put some yellow tape around it and created a crime scene," Estrada said.
Despite being a proponent of Halloween decorations, he said he understands the connotations of a hanging body set up in a neighborhood. Still, he's not taking the decoration too seriously.
"Life is too short to worry about, you know, petty stuff," Estrada said.
A spokesperson from the Bowie Police Department told NBC Washington that there are no ordinances applying to this kind of display and that it's on private property in Bowie.
