Children Playing Find Body Wrapped In Blanket In North Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Children playing in a vacant lot make a gruesome discovery -- A body bound and wrapped in a blanket.
It's a discovery that would frighten anyone so understandably, for 10-year-old Jalen Casper and friends, it was terrifying.
"Scary and awful," Jalen recalled, "We heard somebody shouting it was a dead body right there and all you can see is the feet."
Jalen's mother, Christine Casper added, "The kids found the body and as a parent, you don't want your child to be traumatized by something like that."
Chief Inspector Scott Small explained, "The medical examiner will remove the sheet and the duct tape and determine the cause of death."
Police say they received multiple 911 calls shortly after 6pm Thursday in North Philadelphia.
Upon arrival, officers located the body in a rear alley in the 2500 block of North 11th Street.
"The body is covered from head to ankles with this red bed sheet. So we can't tell at this point whether it's male or female, we can't tell the race, we can't even tell an age," Small said.
Now the search begins for clues and answers. In the meantime, whatever the motive, the parents we talked to call the suspect: cold and careless.
Casper said, "I'm angry and I'm also shocked because you left it in an alley way where children can see it and you didn't really care if kids ran across it."
An autopsy, officials say, is scheduled for first thing Friday.