Found a body this morning....

[Mark Howard]

Hell of a way to start a day. So I get up at my normal 0530 to go for my Saturday morning run. Not much going on as usual, girls asleep, dogs needs to piss, typical morning. I live in a small subdivision off a country road that backs up to a 18,000 acre wetlands preserve. Beautiful swamp scenes down the road, very little traffic, so a nice place to put in a couple miles.

So I leave to start my run 0600, and wrongly decide to leave my iPhone at home. Figured I'd take in some peace and quiet for a change. I stretch, grab a sip of water and head off into the balmy 76 degree mist. So I'm trotting along, with the sun just coming up at my back. The country road, known locally as Alligator Bayou Road (go figure, 18,000 acre swamp, and yes I do have alligators in my front yard) often has smells that sometimes make you hold your breadth, dead snake, armadillo, opossum etc. I'm used to it, comes with the territory.

Due to the smooth pavement, lack of traffic and scenery, the road is also a favorite of the Baton Rouge Bicycle clue. I see a few cars parking at a turn out, getting their bikes off the car racks, and I trot buy with a resounding "Good Morning" that us southern folk say as a matter of course 'cause I was brought up that way. Being a morning person, I like to say it a little louder just to see the reactions I get. These bikers were spry this morning, and replied with fervor.

About a mile into the run, I pass the local Swamp Tour business that closed down last year due to some local politics (another story for another time) and as I pass the gravel parking lot and a steep ditch, I suddenly see something that should not be there....tennis shoes, blue jeans, legs...shirt, head, large pool of reddish black stuff.....Holy *****....

Dude was obviously dead so I didn't even attempt to check for life signs. Dead people don't freak me out...after Afganistan and Iraq tours, I've seen enough dead people. Dead people near my home in an affluent area do freak me out.

So there I am, a mile from home, no cell phone (which is the last time that will happen). I flagged down two of the bikers I said good morning to a few minutes earlier and ask for their cell, which thankfully they had. They were a little pissy with my at first, how dare I interrupt their morning ride, until they saw the body...I thought the younger of the two was gonna pass out. I had to sit him down in the road facing away from the scene...damn was he pale.

The rest is the typical story, call the sheriff, 20 units arrive (rural sheriff, every night is a slow night), questions, pictures, Crime Scene tape...etc.

Turns out to be a black guy, late 20s, known thug in the area. His picture on the evening news was taken in a fashionable orange jumpsuit. Sheriff handled it well, and I suspect some other thug will be bragging to his buddies on how he popped a cap in the guy (or about 10 as it turns out) and the sheriff will have several informants willing to talk in no time.

Such is life...Just wish the thugs would keep this crap on their side of town.

Just thought I'd share.

[Dantilla]

Dang. When I started reading this, I thought you were going to stumble across an early 911 body sitting in a barn. Sorry it was a person, even if he was a Thug.

[pete3799]

And i thought my morning sucked.......

[TimT]

I work in construction management on federal and state level contracts..

About 25 years ago... It was a Monday morning, I was out on the job having a look around...and needed to relieve myself....

I found the nearest porta a pottie... opened the door and and was greeted by a dead person sitting on the throne.

To say the emotions experienced were unsettling is inadequate.

[fritzgator]

Where'd this happen Mark, I'm out in killian myself.

[Mark Howard]

Fritz - Prairieville, near Highland Road. About a mile from Blue Bayou Waterpark as the crow flies.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by TimT

I work in construction management on federal and state level contracts..

About 25 years ago... It was a Monday morning, I was out on the job having a look around...and needed to relieve myself....

I found the nearest porta a pottie... opened the door and and was greeted by a dead person sitting on the throne.

To say the emotions experienced were unsettling is inadequate.

Tim, I trust you were able to find an unoccupied potty rather quickly after that shock!

[Embraer]

i stumbled across two dead girls in a parked car at my old apartment complex. i was cleaning out my apartment and making trips to the dumpster. i walked by them about 4 times before i stopped. after the 4th time of walking by, and noticing they were in the same positions for about 3 hours, i saw they were dead. called the cops, etc.

it happened at the end of july, and i remember sitting out on my back patio. all night, the neighbor kids had been playing with fireworks, so later that night, around 3am, right when i crawled in bed, the 3 "bangs" i heard, i attributed to the kids and their fireworks. ...it was actually the girls getting capped. drug deal gone wrong.

[A930Rocket]

Wild story Mark. My wife works in a hospital and see all kinds of gruesome stuff and dead people. It's part of life she says...

[syncroid]

Wow Mark! I imagine it will take awhile before you settle back in. You've heard the saying, "It can happen anywhere". We all just keep hopeing it won't happen in our own neighborhood. Another way to look at it, one more bad guy (we hope) is off the street at no expense to the tax payers.

[pwd72s]

Sure glad I live in a small town. Where (almost) nothing happens.

Wow--what a story.

[Shuie]

Wow. I guess they though the gators would get rid of the evidence. Aligator Bayou is about 2 miles from my house. Pretty spooky that people are getting whacked or dumped out here.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Sure glad I live in a small town. Where (almost) nothing happens.

There was a brutal axe murder in my tiny town of 2700 people 31 years ago last week. I remember it very well. Murders in a small town are far worse, since everyone usually knows the victim and the perp. It really, really sucked for about two weeks to think there was an axe murderer on the loose among us back then. Once they caught her (deceased's husband's mistress), we breathed a sigh of relief.

[Steve Carlton]

How much cash did he have on him?

[Les Paul]

Back in the late 60's my Grandad owned a cheese plant. Western Kansas. As a jr high kid I would occasionally go with my uncle on the milk routes. Miles and miles of the main highways. So remote you could easily be lost. Flash forward several years. 1973 evening news with Walter Cronkite. 2 women found shot to death. 2 children under 2 left to freeze to death. One of the very places we had picked up milk. I was watching with my friends and coworkers before we served dinner at the sorority I was a waiter at. Sweet gig by the way. Anyway sad deal.

[lm6y]

Right after High School, a group of my friends and I went on a "camping trip" to celebrate our graduation, and just party like there was no tomorrow. That all ended when we found the bound, and decapitated body near our camp site. The poor guy was murdered because he happened to be gay.

It's easy to think about what you would do when / if you ever found a body, but when it actually happens, NOTHING can prepare you for it. I couldn't imagine ever getting "used to it".

[Rick Lee]

I haven't seen anything worse than white sheets with bodies under them, once at a bus stop in DC and recently in the hood in LA. Saw a bloody body being removed from a car accident in China too. But coming across a crime victim in the middle of nowhere would be a little freaky.

[fred cook]

I was stationed in Gulfport, Ms. (Seabee) when hurricane Camille went thru in 1969. Afterwards we spent several days on a body search detail. Not fun at all!

[VaSteve]

I was driving home one night in 1995 when I came upon something in the road. I couldn't figure it out at first, but it was the bottom of a minivan that had turned on its side. The radio was still playing and the back was open and stuff (seat cushions like you take to the football stadium) spread all over the road. The van wasn't laying entirely flat on its side, the driver was pinned underneath. Dead.

It was a high school kid. Driving around with his buddies drunk and lost control, got ejected and the van landed on him I guess. We went to my friends house and called 911 (before everyone had a cell) and then went back to the accident site. There were two other kids in that van at the time. They were wandering the neighborhood in a daze/drunk when the cops showed up.

The kid's name was Travis. I read it in the paper a couple days later.

Sad.