Scavenger Finds Unidentified Decaying Body In East Harlem Trash Can

A 43-year-old man collecting and scavenging for cans stumbled upon a gruesome discovery on early Sunday after finding a severely decomposed body in a garbage can in East Harlem, police confirmed.

The body was reportedly found by a scavenger on the FDR Drive Promenade between East 112th and East 114th streets at around 2:30 in the morning, the New York Post reported.

According to police, the undisclosed man called the police after he knocked over the garbage can and noticed a large quantity of blood started spilling out.

Police were summoned to the scene to discover the unidentified remains stuffed inside a bag plastic bag in an advanced state of decomposition. Authorities have not ascertained if the body was male or female.

According to the Daily News, Medical Examiner’s Office is still investigating the cadaver to find out its cause of death and leads to its identity.

Just late last year, ABC7 reported that some 100 decomposing bodies were found inside unrefrigerated U-Haul trucks outside a funeral home in Brooklyn. The harrowing occurrence surfaced after nearby residents started complaining about the foul odor emanating from the vehicles.

Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Services' owner admitted blame for the gruesome discovery admitting that his facility's freezer had stopped working.

"This funeral home is over-capacitated with human remains, and that is true," funeral director Dr. David Penepent had said. "He got overwhelmed with the number of remains that he had, and he didn't know what to do, and I'm here to assist him in this operation."

Reports did not mention whether the bodies belonged to people who died of COVID-19, during the surge of cases in New York at the time.

The funeral home would later be shuttered for its inhumane practices. Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Services was shut down for "egregious violations" at the height of the pandemic. The owner had appealed to State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker for reconsideration, but the official sustained the state judge's ruling.

"I was the only funeral director during this pandemic who was singled out!" Andrew Cleckley said to Eyewitness News back in August 2020.

Earlier this week in Port of Spain, local fishers spotted 14 bodies, a skull, and skeletal remains stacked atop a boat off the coast of the Trinidad and Tobago capital, US News reported.

Police said that the bodies were severely decomposing. Authorities are awaiting identification and subsequent autopsies to determine the causes of their death.