Prospective home buyer finds mummified remains in car inside Detroit garage

DETROIT -- Authorities say an anthropologist will perform an autopsy on a severely decomposed body found inside a parked car in Detroit.

Police say a prospective home buyer discovered the body Thursday in the garage. A medical examiner’s office spokesman says the dark, leathery bones were covered in a sweater, shirt and pants.

Detroit Police officer Dan Donakowski has said tenants told police they never entered the garage because the landlord prohibited it. Donakowski said Monday that nobody has been detained and he doesn’t know whether police talked to the landlord or person selling the property.

CBS Detroit reports that the body was so badly decomposed that authorities don’t know what sex it is.

Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office spokesman Lloyd Jackson says a University of Michigan anthropologist will conduct the autopsy Tuesday. 

“When the body came in — because it was so badly decomposed and mummified — there was an inspection done by the medical examiner,” Jackson told the station. “No autopsy was done, just an inspection and it was determined that an anthropologist needs to come in and do further testing and an actual autopsy on the body.”

Jackson reportedly they hope the anthropologist’s examination will also determine the age and identity of the victim, as well as the cause of death.

“When a body is mummified, it is passed the decomposition stages,” Jackson said. “When a body decomposes it brings about flies and those things, but it’s passed that stage and it’s like the bones are really brown, like a dark brown — like leathery almost.”