Kingston Police Department detectives and state police were conducting a death investigation Wednesday morning after a man’s body was discovered beneath a bridge spanning a railroad cut in Midtown.
At 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29 members of the KPD’s Detective Division huddled with District Attorney’s Office Chief Investigator William Weishaupt at the rail crossing near the corner of Downs Street and Ora Place, while a team of state police forensic investigators dressed in protective coveralls walked the rail line heading towards the overpass one block north. Crime-scene tape was stretched across narrow footpaths leading from the street to the railroad cut while an officer in a marked car remained parked on the bridge and blocked a reporter’s access to the south side of the overpass. KPD Detective Lieutenant Thierry Croizer declined to comment on the investigation except to say that the team was investigating a “male deceased under the bridge.”
According to neighbors, police began arriving on the scene between 8 and 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning. One neighborhood resident said police told him they were investigating a “serious crime” that had occurred in the rail cut. Matt Ryan, who lives at 37 Downs St. adjacent to the rail line, said that he emerged from his house Wednesday morning to find police investigators who advised him to stay away from his garbage cans and remain inside. Ryan said that a neighbor told him she had called police sometime last night to report a confrontation between a woman and a man wielding a machete but both subjects were gone by the time police arrived. Ryan added that he had heard nothing out of the ordinary prior to cop’s arrival.
“My neighbors have dogs, I have a dog, if there had been any kind of commotion down there, they would have gone crazy,” said Ryan.
The railroad cut belongs to Ulster County. Plans call for the line to be converted into a walking and biking trail.
Join the family! 
