A grim discovery was made outside a grocery store in California on Sunday afternoon when a body wrapped in a sheet was found dumped inside a shopping cart outside the store.
The horrifying discovery was made just after 4 pm on March 12, in a shopping cart outside the Food Maxx store on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Chico.
A person who had just finished shopping at the store passed near the shopping cart and saw what appeared to be a dead body. The passerby called 911.
Responding officers found the shopping cart near the front of the grocery store, and further inspection of the contents led them to the decomposing body of a man, which was wrapped up in a white plastic sheet.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene, and his body was taken to the coroner’s office, according to the Chico Police Department.
According to the police, the victim, whom they have not yet publicly identified, suffered visible injuries, suggesting a struggle before his death. The police will be investigating the man’s death as a homicide.
Chico Police Department Detective Lieutenant Brian Miller told a local news station that the body had likely been inside the cart and in front of the store for several days before it was finally discovered.
Miller also told the outlet that police had already accessed the store’s surveillance footage showing a possible suspect.
The detective said they could see some movement in the surveillance footage, adding that they saw a suspect moving the shopping cart on the sidewalk.
Investigators went back to the scene on Monday and were seen taking samples of what they termed as suspicious stains on the ground. They collected the samples following the tracks of the movement of the shopping cart, as was seen in the footage.
A medical examiner will perform an autopsy on the body to determine what caused his death and the manner of his death.
Police have not yet released additional information about the victim. They have also not named a suspect or made an arrest.
