Police were investigating the discovery of a body in a Detroit dumpster Wednesday afternoon, after the corpse was apparently stolen from a hospital as part of a scam to get insurance money. The body of an 86-year-old man, reported to have been a decorated World War II veteran, was found in a dumpster behind a drug store on Detroit's west side. Police told Action News that the man had died of natural causes at Providence Hospital in Southfield, but at 11:30 p.m. on June 4th, two men posing as funeral home workers stole the man's body from the morgue.
Investigators said the two men planned to take the man's body and name, then claim an insurance policy and cash in on it. Southfield Police made the gruesome discovery after receiving a tip from police in Grand Rapids that the men had already tried to do the same thing there. Following the tip, police found one of the two suspects at a west Detroit home not far from where the body was stashed. That man confessed, and told police they would find the body in the dumpster. Another man involved was later arrested. Police say that because the man had died of natural causes, they would not follow a murder investigation. Instead, police said they would pursue a felony fraud investigation. |