The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the death of a man that was found floating in a 55-gallon plastic barrel by a Malibu Beach lifeguard, according to sheriffs.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the death of a naked man who was found in a floating 55-gallon plastic barrel by a Malibu Beach lifeguard, according to a press release.
Authorities say that a maintenance worker first saw the barrel drum floating in the lagoon on Sunday afternoon and brought it onto the shore using a kayak, the Associated Press (AP) reported. The worker said it was too heavy and didn’t want to open it so they left it on the shore, the news site said.
The next morning around 10:10 a.m., a lifeguard saw the barrel in the lagoon and swam out to retrieve it, according to the sheriff’s department. When they brought it ashore, they opened it and found the corpse of a naked Black man inside, authorities said.
There are no additional details on the identity or age of the victim found and authorities are still determining how long he was in the barrel, the AP reported.
“From what I did see it didn’t look to me like it was decomposed or had been there a long time,” Lieutenant Hugo Reynaga of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said, according to the AP.
Jefferson Wagner, the former mayor of Malibu, told the Los Angeles Times he also saw the black barrel on Sunday as he passed the lagoon but just assumed it was a toxic waste container.
“This is not what happens in Malibu,” Wagner told the Los Angeles Times. This is not a common occurrence. I mean, bodies in a barrel is just sad.”
