Body in bin actually a mannequin

Heightened awareness after recent deaths led to call to Edmonton cops

EDMONTON— Edmonton homicide detectives were in for a surprise Monday when they discovered that a body found in a dumpster south of the river was not a human, but a burned mannequin.

Police made the discovery after receiving a call from a concerned resident in Edmonton’s Queen Alexandra neighbourhood about11a.m. Monday, who found what appeared to be a body covered in a sheet when he was taking out the trash, according to police spokesperson Scott Pattison.

A rash of deaths of men found in donation bins across the country, plus a woman who died Tuesday in such a container in Toronto, has led to heightened awareness of the safety of such receptacles.

The Ontario company that manufactures clothing donation boxes used by charities across Canada said Tuesday it has stopped producing the metal bins while it works to design a safer model.

When police arrived, they saw what appeared to be a foot and an ankle exposed, while the rest of the human-sized object was covered.

“It looked like a human foot,” Pattison said. Homicide detectives and the medical examiner were called to probe.

After several hours, police de- termined that the body was not real, and was, in fact, a mannequin.

Pattison said the mannequin appeared to be burned and melted, and that the foot was purple in colour.

Police initially thought that the body could have been a noncriminal death of a homeless person in the neighbourhood, Pattison said, or someone who may have fallen asleep in the dumpster and died.

“Thankfully, it was none of those things,” Pattison said.

Pattison said the man who found the mannequin did the right thing by calling police. “If it indeed was human remains or somebody was in there and they may have been still alive, they could’ve saved their life by making that call.”