5mo ago

What should I do if I find a bag by the road that I'm concerned it's a dead body?

So I was walking and found this garbage bag that had flys on it and it was tied up. I kicked at it a bit and it did feel like something limp was in there like it was dead. Tried to untie it as well so might have my fingerprints on it. But yeah a car came up and was yeah someone actually concerned for me and he's like I'm going to pray for you man. So that right there just got me to stop looking any further at the bag. But I'm still kinda of interested if I should've said something right then and there. My phone was almost dead anyway. But yeah I was thinking maybe I might find a dead body maybe a part of a dead body. I didn't look any further but it was out of place I felt. Should I report such finds?

91 comments

OP killed a guy and thinks this is gonna be part of their cover story
- I feel like this is a pretty crass joke to make.
  A good friend of mine found a body a few months ago. It's a pretty shitty experience. And it's actually a lot like what OP describes. A sense of foreboding and suspicion combined with a conviction that these thoughts are foolish. And an uncertainty whether to check or to alert someone or to just try to forget it.
  Op, I'd report it and ask them to please follow up with you and let you know. It's probably nothing, and you'll feel better once you know it was nothing, and that you did the responsible thing in having it dealt with.
- Exactly what I was thinking
- Honestly at least if it is a dead body I've called it in and explained that I did touch it trying to open it but couldn't.
  
  "we found your fingerprints on the body"
  Yeah I may have reached my hand inside and felt around a little my bad
  
  Suuuure

Call 911, tell them where it is, explain that you found a trash bag somewhere and you're concerned it has a dead body in it, don't disturb it any more than you already have
I work in 911 dispatch, from my end of things this is a very straightforward call. Verify your location, one or two short lines of notes, send a cop out to check it out.
I've taken a few calls like this, luckily it's always just been trash or at worst a dead animal.
One time the responding officer found some bones in the bag and was pretty sure they weren't human, but called out our on-call coroner to be sure who confirmed that it was just a deer or something.
Similarly I once had a call from an off-duty coroner reporting a "strong smell of decomp" from the woods near a gas station or something. I guess if anyone would know it would be them. Sent a cop out, sure enough, it was a dead deer.
It's very rare that anything like this is ever as exciting as your imagination makes you think it might be. Still, always better to call if you're unsure.
- Honest question, you seem like a great person to ask.
  In the event fingerprints weren’t a issue…
  What would be the best way go about this anonymously?
  
  If you really want to remain anonymous for some reason, call from a payphone (they still exist,) use a burner phone, borrow a phone from a random passerby, wear a mask so no one can recognize you in case there's security cameras, make sure you're not seen getting into your own car or walking home, change your clothes somewhere in the middle, etc.
  If you call from your own phone number, if we and/or the cops care enough, it's not all that hard to get phone records and get your info.
  But I'm also going to let you in on something- we're not going to care. The cops may have a couple follow up questions for you (like maybe "how often do you walk this way," "so they can try to establish how long it's been there,) that I'm probably not going to ask on the initial 911 call. My job isn't to take a full report and investigate and interrogate everyone, my job is to make sure cops are sent out to do all of that, and if you don't give us a way to contact you back, you're making it harder for them to investigate the incident.
  And why? They're not going to tell anyone who the random passerby was who found the bag, they're not going to try to blame it on you, and honestly wanting to remain anonymous probably makes you sound a lot more suspicious than if you just gave your name and they're probably going to put more effort into figuring out who you were and trying to drag you in for questioning than they would have otherwise.
  
  Back in the day a Payphone if you can find one.
  Now I am not sure if their is a way anymore.
  
  They send violence to those that ask for help. They'll do no different for you.

Seriously?
Phone the cops. Now.

At the very least, OP, dumping garbage by the road is against the law, so even if it's just regular garbage, you are reporting a crime regardless. Bonus: a cop has to deal with someone else's garbage.

911, what's your emergency?
I found a dead body on the side of the road.
Where are you? I'm sending police to you now.
Uhh, I touched it.
OK, don't do that. Do you have hand sanitizer?
I may have eaten some.
...
Also, I tripped. I may have slipped inside.
What does that mean?
I...completed.
Listen just stay where you are, police are on their way.

Yeah there are non-emergency police numbers other than 911. I also say phone it in.
- Wait, why would you not call 911? Murderer on the loose sounds like an emergency to me
  
  I think 911 (or whatever the number is where you live) would be fine. But the argument could be made that the emergency number should reserved for active emergencies, in OPs case the victim is already potentially dead.
  
  I would argue 911 is for emergencies that 100% need to be dealt with immediately.
  This feels like calling it in and letting them decide priority is better. It could be anything.
  
  So there are currently murderers on the loose (actual fact). Does that mean we live in a permanent emergency?
- It varies a bit from one area to another, but a lot of places have moved to a central dispatch model where basically everything goes through the 911 center one way or another. It's usually best to just call 911 and cut out the middle men, worst case scenario they'll tell you it's not an emergency and who to call, maybe even connect you to them directly. Even if your area works differently and they do actually want to dispatch non emergencies from the station, you really need to be a nuisance before anyone even dreams of trying to get you in trouble for misusing 911, no one wants to do that paperwork or go to court for a one-off call.
  Source- I am a 911 dispatcher.
  If you do call the non-emergency number, one of 4 things is usually going to happen (in my county)
  The call comes right into us anyway, a lot of stations aren't staffed 24/7 so when they're not there to answer the phone it rolls over to us, or sometimes they even publish or give out a direct number to us instead of their actual inside line because most of the time we're going to have to deal with it anyway.
  The station forwards you to us
  The station tells you to hang up and call 911.
  The station takes down the information, then after they hang up with you, they call us and relay it to us (and usually misses half the details we'd like to have)
  Pretty much the only things the people answering the phones at the station are good for is answering general administrative questions- "can I get fingerprinted for my job?" "did anyone turn in some lost keys?" "How do I get a permit to...?" "How do i get a copy of a report?" "How do I pay my fine?" "Where was my car towed to?" Etc.
  If you need a cop to do something, even if it's just to take a report, your best bet is usually calling 911.
  
  As a 911 dispatcher, don’t you think the worst case scenario is someone choking to death in a chicken bone while you’re explaining to a flood of casual callers that their situation doesn’t count as an emergency?
  
  I think it definitely varies by county. I worked for an IT company that served a lot of county governments across a few states in the US, and a majority of them would try to discourage 911 calls for things that weren’t active emergencies.
  Lots of counties had central 911 operations that coordinated for other local municipalities (ie the county 911 would dispatch a local city’s fire department), but non-emergency numbers usually went to the local municipality. Sometimes municipalities would have non-emergency calls roll over to the 911 center, but those calls were always tagged differently, and essentially moved to the back of the queue behind 911 calls. The goal was generally that if you call 911 you talk to someone immediately, whereas if you call non-emergency you can wait on hold for a bit if there were a lot of 911 calls.

The person said they'd pray for you because they thought you were a dumpster diver i.e. that you were gonna eat out of the trash so that's what happened there. And so... It was also probably just a bag of food waste going gnarly.
It's actually really funny to me that a cop has to go look in the funky bag. That's a better use of their time than a lot of things they get up to of a day. Nice one!
- The person said they'd pray for you because they thought you were a dumpster diver i.e. that you were gonna eat out of the trash so that's what happened there.
  Possible, but it is a huge stretch to automatically assume that was what they were thinking.
  
  Yeah it's a pretty rural area. I think he was just someone looking to spread his religion to cause he basically did hold up traffic a bit. So it did seem like he was actually concerned I would be walking all the way out.

So I did call the non-emergency phone number. Could be a waste of time for the cops or whatever. What I was doing is walking to Burger King to get a Whooper I walked 5 miles there and 5 miles back home found it on my way home.
- Whooper
  
  Joking aside, if you think you've found a body, drugs, a gun, whatever it is; don't touch it, find a place that's far away from the thing but in view so you can keep an eye on it, and then call it in. I know, ACAB and all that, but this is serious shit. You don't wanna be too close in case the owner comes back, but you don't wanna leave it either.
- Damn don't think I've ever been "walk ten miles for burger king" hungry.
  Anyway, dead bodies are typically the kind of things you want to report ANONYMOUSLY
  
  Well it's not the only time I've walked long distance.
- Good diet plan! Average person burns around 80 calories per mile walking at a moderate pace. You burned 800 calories to eat a 660 calorie Whopper.

I would suggest calling the city or county and reporting suspicious dumping. It could be a body. It could be a rotting animal carcass. It could have toxic chemicals in it.
You don't need to suspect that it's a body to call the city and report what looks like dangerous dumping.

It was probably just full of garbage (which is also "limp" and attracts flies) and the idea of some cop having to cut it open and go through it because you called it in is sort of funny.
With that said, I have wondered about similar things. One time I saw a guy I thought might be dead but I waited a few minutes, he moved a little, and I figured he was probably just very drunk so I left. Another time I did go tell an NYC cop that there was a guy lying on the ground in the middle of a busy street, and the cop didn't seem to care. Maybe I should have called 911 instead but I didn't want to be officially associated with the situation.
- This kinda thing just happened to me 2 days ago. Out taking the dogs for their evening walk and some dude was lying in the middle of his yard splayed out on his back, eyes closed, motionless and alone. It really looked like he had fallen off the roof or passed out so I waited for 10 seconds to see if I could see breathe, didn't, said loudly "you okay there buddy"?
  'Yup'
  "awesome. Have a good evening."
  😳
  
  Good on ya for lookin out!
- and the idea of some cop having to cut it open and go through it because you called it in is sort of funny.
  "Yeah, officers, uh... I definitely saw a body, at the bottom of the landfill... If you don't find it right away, just keep looking, it's definitely there."

I never report any of the dead bodies I find, I really hate paperwork
- Thanks buddy, I really appreciate it.

A similar situation happened to me! DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING Call the non emergency number! If they are annoyed that they came out and it winds up being garbage, who cares? At least you didn't ignore something potentially very important.
In my case, it was a suitcase that had duct tape around it. That showed up overnight. I called local cops first that sent guys out that seemed bored, honestly. And my heart was racing as I answered questions. When they opened the bag, it had ripped clothes and a half used roll of duct tape. The local PD literally said "well, we don't have a crime we can match this to." They started to leave without the bag and I was confused why they wouldn't at least take it for evidence? I have watched too many episodes of CSI, cold case etc and was freaking out. They left. I guess they just want to make money on traffic stops.
I couldn't leave the situation there, and a friend knew someone in the State Police. After a few phone calls I got in touch with a detective. Who was very confused that the local cops had handled the situation like that. He arrived and took the bag into evidence and got my information. As far as I know, nothing ever came of it.
- How was the duct tape in the duct taped suitcase?
  
  You're asking a guy who got offended the cops didn't take a random suitcase with clothes and tape as evidence of a non existent case enough to call up a detective who probably just took the time to take the thing to a dumpster somewhere
  
  You’re aware that it’s legal to own more than one roll of duct tape, right? Or to tear a really long strip off the roll and wrap it around something after you put the roll inside? 😁
  
  That was part we were confused by! I literally asked my coworkers before I called the cops if this was some sort of prank they were playing on me because no one else had access to the area and it just seemed like something out of a cheesy mystery novel. When the police opened the bag and it was just clothes I was so relieved, but the roll being inside was weird. Like someone either had another roll of tape for the outside, or they preeemtively cut a length off before putting the roll inside. Who knows. I wonder if I'll ever get a call about it, but suppose no news is good news.
  
  https://youtu.be/j2d6T5G2rrY?si=YYCLx5T5NLKchl7O

I called to report a possible body in a bag to the police.
But if I had gotten a random “Gonna pray for you” comment about me poking the bag, I would shut my mouth and move on with life as if I’d never seen the bag.

I have to know - was this in Knoxville?
- I live in Indiana.
  
  Deer hunting season begins in less than two weeks. Depending on exactly where you found it, it could very likely be a poached deer's discarded guts. This is common in rural areas. And, people tend to hide human bodies a bit better than in a bag on the side of the road.
- What's happening in Knoxville that made you assume this? 😰
  
  Haha, it's a bit silly and a bit bizarre. Nothing to be scared of though (so far)

I bet it's just a mannequin.
- (It's never a mannequin)

My friend found a tent on his property. It had mold on one side of it, a horrible smell and basically a black cloud of flies. He tried to open it but the stench was so bad he just called the police.

And don't forget to update us on the outcome!
- Well I got a call back later from a private number I meant to answer but missed out. Since their number was private I couldn't tell.

🤨

In my state you can shoot, butcher, and then dispose of all of the waste (bones, skin, etc) from a deer directly into the trash. My first thought would have been, assuming you feel bones inside, that it's from hunting.
- If you're going to dump it at the side of the road, why bag it?
  
  Easier to handle and dump would be my guess.

Call your local law enforcement, either police or sheriff via the non-emergency number to not waste 911 time.

In my country, you can phone the nearest station(not using emergency line) and the police will check it for you. That's how a lot of murder victim is found in my country anyway. They will also check for suspicious package left at the train station to make sure it's not a bomb.

Open it

Drop a knife next to it and run like heck

91 comments