Saturday, January 31, 2009

Wrong Way To Build An Igloo

LC Sentry at the Rott gave me this:

In Detroit, a man was found frozen underneath several feet of ice with just his lower legs hanging out. He was discovered by a group of men who were playing ice hockey in the basement of an abandoned warehouse.

DETROIT -- This city has not always been a gentle place, but a series of events over the past few, frigid days causes one to wonder how cold the collective heart has grown.

It starts with a phone call made by a man who said his friend found a dead body in the elevator shaft of an abandoned building on the city's west side.

"He's encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks," the caller phoned to tell this reporter.




A bumsicle.

UPDATE:

I have been thinking that this was not just an ordinary: "wino falls asleep" story. He probably was not alive at the time he was frozen. Dumping a DB (dead body) unceremoniously down an elevator shaft in an abandoned building is not a bad way to get rid of an unwelcome stiff in an expeditious fashion.

His sneaks and socks look fairly clean (no mud on them nor on his pants cuff) so I the chances of him being just a homeless wanderer are not as great. I really don't think that this was his living area and he drowned in it. Homeless persons are not without possessions and they usually have them arranged near where they are staying. I see nothing of the sort here.

Obviously the water was not frozen when he came to rest else he would have bounced. And if there were a foot or more of water in the shaft, then what was he doing there in the first place (if he was there of his own volution)? The area where the pillow lies seems to be an island of some sort above the water level. Or it could be that these items were floating on the water.

I wish the photo was larger but it seems that there is some sort of fabric covering him, perhaps a garbage bag with piece of paper over that.

We have no idea how long he had been dead. Since the socks have not been disturbed by scavengers getting at his flesh, I'll say he hasn't been there that long before the ice froze him in. The ice will preserve the remains for an autopsy to be performed to determine the cause of death. I'll go sixty-forty that this is a homicide. Right now the Detroit PD is checking its Missing Persons file.

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