Florida Jogger Finds Decomposing Human Head Alongside Road During Morning Run

A Florida woman who was out jogging Tuesday morning in St. Petersburg, Fla. discovered a decomposing human head at the side of the road, authorities said.

She came across the remains near the community of Lakewood Estates where it lay in a grassy area between the sidewalk and the edge of the road underneath an overpass. Homicide detectives searched a wooded area in the vicinity and also sought the public’s help to find any clues. Police were working to nail down whether the remains were left in the area by someone or if an animal dragged it to the spot.

Police were called to the intersection of 38th Avenue South and 31st Street South around 7 a.m. following the discovery, WFLA of Tampa Bay reported.

“I freaked out because I live over here. It freaked me out,” the jogger Shirley Williams, whose apartment is about a block from the scene, said.

The remains have decomposed beyond recognition and investigators could not immediately determine the gender or race of the deceased, St. Petersburg Police Department spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez told The Tampa Bay Times.

It also remained unclear how long the remains had been there while police said the victim didn’t appear to have died at the scene. The jogger told police she didn’t notice anything in the area when she was out for her Sunday morning run.

All roads were closed after the jogger made the discovery, with the detectives reportedly erecting a canopy in the area as part of a search in the area for additional remains.

Fernandez told NBC News in an e-mail that the Pinellas County Medical Examiner was in possession of the remains and yet to identify the deceased.

“It is a bizarre incident, and what makes it a little bit harder for our detectives is we’re underneath an overpass,” St. Pete police spokeswoman Rafael Lopez told WFLA at the time of the discovery. “We have wooded areas on both sides of this overpass. So they’re not able to rely on any surveillance footage to help them out with this investigation.”

St. Pete Police is currently examining the missing person files but said the exact identification of the race and gender is pending the medical examiner’s report.