A body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag on top of a trolley along a sidewalk in New York City on Friday, police said.
The shocking daytime discovery was made after police were called to a 911 call reporting a suspicious package in the Manhattan East Side neighborhood of Kips Bay just before 5pm, according to the NYPD. Emergency responders rushed to the scene and pronounced the person dead.
Footage from the scene showed the body inside a dark sleeping bag placed on a trolley surrounded by black garbage bags and tied to the scaffolding railing with red string.
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A body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag on top of a trolley along a sidewalk in New York City on Friday. (Ted Oemke)
Ted Ehmke, who took video of the grisly scene from inside a friend’s building, told Fox News Digital that he noticed a BMW SUV parked with its hatch open next to where the body was found Thursday night. The car was not there by Friday afternoon.
He said he was troubled by the discovery.
“That’s a lot of work … and then they do all that and then they just dump it on the sidewalk,” he said. “I would call them geniuses if they didn’t get caught, because I don’t know how they could expect to get away with it with the cameras and everything else. [that]”
The cause of death is unknown and police have not released the identity of the body. The final cause of death will be determined by the coroner.
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The body was found outside Appel’s Alterations and photographed in 2022. (Google Maps)
Ohmke said he saw police open the bag and inside he saw what appeared to be a white or Hispanic man in his 60s.
The body was found outside a now-closed tailor shop called Appel’s Alterations, whose owner died several years ago, Emke said.
Oemke said he has lived in the area for 30 years and it is known for people sleeping rough.
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Police officers and bystanders at the scene where the body was discovered. (Ted Oemke)
“For some reason, I’m not really surprised. I don’t know, it doesn’t happen that often, but I see people sleeping in all sorts of ways around here,” he said. “Sleeping in trash cans, curled up, sleeping, they look like they’re dead. I’ve seen people I thought were dead before who were actually alive.”
“There’s a lot of activity around here. Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital is right around the corner and the largest men’s shelter in the city is here,” he added.
Police say no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
