Almost ten years ago, something happened on a rock at the edge of Central Park that was never fully explained and has never been solved. For most of the past decade, the file sat quiet. Then, earlier this week, the NYPD pulled it back into public view with a newly released photograph, a restructured reward, and another appeal to anyone who might recognize one very specific object. With the Fourth of July almost here, the obvious assumption is that the timing is significant. According to the NYPD, it isn’t.
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On July 3, 2016, at roughly 10:52 a.m., an 18-year-old visiting from Fairfax, Virginia, jumped off a rock formation near the park’s Fifth Avenue and East 60th Street entrance and came down on a plastic bag that had been left on the ground. Inside was a homemade explosive. The blast severely injured the young man — later identified as University of Miami student Connor Golden — and cost him his lower left leg, which had to be amputated below the knee. He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in serious but stable condition.
In the hours afterward, investigators offered an early theory that has largely held up: someone had been experimenting with fireworks or a homemade explosive, and the device was likely discarded in the park before Golden ever arrived. Police found no sign of a constructed device, no timer and no shrapnel, and no evidence tying the blast to terrorism — though the possibility drew enough concern that it briefly commanded attention far beyond the park. Officials used the moment to warn the public, in blunt terms, against trying to make their own fireworks around the holiday, according to ABC News.
Two weeks later, on July 14, 2016, the NYPD said forensic testing had turned up traces of substances that can be bought legally at ordinary hardware stores and combined into a homemade explosive agent — reinforcing the theory that the blast was the work of someone experimenting with commercially available products. News outlets reported the compound as TATP, a volatile homemade explosive that has surfaced in terrorist attacks abroad, which is part of why the case drew the scrutiny it did, NBC New York reported.
Investigators traced this La Unica “Tropical Crackers” bag, first pictured publicly in 2018, to a New Jersey bakery; the packaging had been out of circulation for years
But the single most distinctive piece of evidence has always been the bag itself. Investigators traced it to La Unica, a New Jersey bakery, where the yellow-and-silver “Tropical Crackers” packaging had once been used to sell Cuban-style crackers — until the business changed hands around 2010 and the design went out of circulation. In other words, whoever assembled the explosive was handling a bag that hadn’t been on a store shelf in years. That oddity is why detectives publicly released a photo of the packaging on July 3, 2018, hoping someone would recognize it.
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That brings the case to last week. On Tuesday, detectives released additional material: a photograph of the crime scene itself — the path, benches and rock outcropping where the bag was found — alongside the familiar cracker-bag image. The department’s Crime Stoppers appeal now classifies the case as an arson and publicizes an increased combined reward of $17,500 for information leading to the person or people responsible: up to $3,500 from Crime Stoppers upon an arrest and indictment, $6,500 from the NYPD, and $7,500 from the ATF upon an arrest and conviction.
The newly released crime scene photo shows the path, benches and rock outcropping near Central Park’s East 60th Street entrance, where the explosive was found
So why now? An officer with the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information office told East Side Feed that the re-release came down to two concrete things in the file: detectives had new media to put out — the crime scene photo — and the reward had been adjusted. The July timing, the officer said, appears to be coincidental rather than planned around the anniversary, noting that the only prior update on the case was the 2018 photo release. The officer also suggested, without certainty, that showing exactly where the unusual bag turned up might jog a memory that a decade of appeals hasn’t.
Nearly ten years on, no one has been arrested, and the person who left the explosive in one of the most heavily trafficked corners of the park has never been identified.
Anyone with relevant information about either incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website or by sending a direct message to @NYPDTips on Twitter. All calls are strictly confidential.
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