A body was found in a trash can in the middle of a West Philly park, police say
Investigators do not yet know the age or sex of the person, or how long the body had been inside the bin.

Sanitation workers found a body stuffed in a trash can in the middle of a West Philadelphia park Thursday morning, and police are investigating the matter as a homicide.
The corpse was found facedown in the bin, which had been left in the middle of a sidewalk at Lucian E. Blackwell Park, at 700 N. 47th St., police said.
“It was just sitting on the walkway, all by itself,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.
Police responded to the scene, in the Mill Creek section of the city, at 9:42 a.m. Investigators do not yet know the identity, age, or sex of the person who died, or how long the body had been inside the bin, Vanore said.
Doctors at the city medical examiner’s office will work to identify the person and determine the cause of death, he said.
The body was found in the middle of a small park tucked behind Parkway West High School and adjacent to the Mill Creek Playground. Vanore said the trash bin did not appear to be linked to those sites but, rather, was likely from a house.
Detectives believe it had been dragged there from another location, said a source with knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The body was found not far from where police responded to a pair of similarly chilling scenes in 2023 and 2024.
» READ MORE: The 12-year-old killed and left in a dumpster was missing in plain sight for months before his death
On Aug. 31, 2023, investigators found the body of 12-year-old Hezekiah Bernard inside a dumpster behind a public housing project at 55th and Cherry Streets. Hezekiah had been shot in the head, his body wrapped in plastic.
Then, in December, police found themselves again looking through dumpsters for the body of a child — that of 4-year-old Damari Carter, who went missing after police said his mother’s boyfriend beat him to death. Five months later, sanitation workers found Damari’s remains in a duffel bag, left amid trash in an abandoned lot on the 600 block of North 38th Street.