An investigation has been launched after a human leg was found sticking out of a dumpster outside a bank in New York City.
The severed body part was seen protruding from the red dumpster outside a TD Bank in Queens on Wednesday, the New York Post reported.
NYPD officers were called to the scene at 164th Street and Union Turnpike in Hillcrest at around 6.30pm when one of the bank’s cleaners took the trash out and spotted it.
Unconfirmed reports online suggested that maggots were found over the leg which is likely to have been in the bin for up to nine days in between rubbish collection cycles.
The NYPD has asked for local home and business owners to send in security footage from the scene as they investigate reports the limb may have been dumped on 11 September.
Amir Bedawi, a neighbour close to the bank, told ABC News: “Before you could see [it], you could smell the dead body.”
He added that construction workers on a nearby building site had caught a whiff of the smell and had also made complaints to the police prior to the grim discovery.
Mr Bedawi also claimed he had seen a video from a nearby home which showed a person wheeling a bin towards the container where the leg was found.
Police tape cordoning off the dumpster where the limb was found— (Citizen/New York Post)
"It [looked] like someone dropping it off next to the dumpster,” Mr Bedawi said of the footage.
Another nearby resident Maksim Dlugunovich told ABC News: “I saw a blue trash can recycle bin where the body was dumped and I saw it open and some stuff hanging out, and some garbage and a shoe.”
An NYPD statement added: “On Wednesday, September 20, 2023, at approximately 1833 hours, police responded to a 911 call in the vicinity 164 Street & Union Turnpike, inside of the TD Bank Parking Lot, within the confines of the 107 Precinct. Upon arrival, officers observed an apparent human body part inside of a recycling bin.
“The investigation remains ongoing and the Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.”
TD Bank has not yet commented on the incident.
