MENDON, N.Y. — A classic whodunnit in Mendon Ponds Park — only this time the victims were deer and the suspects were poachers.

And despite the fact that the only evidence at the scene was a clump of hair and a trail of blood, good old-fashioned police work by the state Department of Environmental Conservation solved the case and got five guilty pleas.

On Friday, News10NBC Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean went back to the scene of the crime.

The DEC says the people arrested and charged came into the park and used crossbows and a shotgun to shoot out of their truck and kill several deer. Hunting is illegal in Mendon Ponds Park.

Last last year, DEC Police Officer Jeffrey Johnston was called to a parking lot there after a hiker found a trail of blood. Johnston followed the blood trail to the woods, and that’s where he found a crucial piece of evidence — a clump of hair.

“When the deer was dragged over top of the sticks and debris, part of the hair got caught on there. So you would get a clump of hair on a stick or debris,” Johnston said.

Johnston out it into an evidence bag, then he followed the trail back to the packing lot.

“There appeared to be vehicle tracks that backed in, and that’s where the blood ended, right about here,” Johnston said, indicating the area.

Johnston didn’t have a lot to go on, just that small piece of hair he found and that blood trail. The very next day, he got a tip that brought him to the railroad tracks in East Rochester.

Police found three deer carcasses along the tracks. One was beheaded. Two had their antlers cut off. DNA matched the hair found in the park, and Johnston also found a knife with a name written on it and a business card.

With a warrant, the search of a suspect’s phone led to five people arrested and charged with killing seven deer.

Officer Johnston recovered six of the antlers.

Berkeley Brean, News10NBC chief investigative officer: “They weren’t going for food, trying to feed their family. They were going for the trophy.”

DEC Officer Jeffrey Johnston: “That is correct.”

In the Finger Lakes in the last several years, the DEC has averaged more than 400 deer poaching cases.

The main suspect in this case didn’t answer Brean’s phone call or text message.

There is no exact count of deer in the park, but he drove by one on his way in.

DEC Lt. Tim Fay: “I’ve only been here for three years as a supervisor, and every year we make a case in Mendon Ponds Park.”

Brean: “Why is what happened a problem?”

Lt. Fay: “First, as far as fish and wildlife, the hunting aspect — shooting deer in this case out of a motor vehicle is not fair chase.”

And then there’s public safety.

Lt. Fay: “You are shooting out at a deer you see in the field, and you don’t know if there’s a hiker in the woods behind them.”

The five people charged all pleaded guilty in late June and paid a combined $7,100 in fines.