BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH |
The decomposing body found in a Midtown manhole could belong to a man who stumbled in while drunk and fell to his death, abc7 reported.
Verizon workers found a decomposing body in the manhole at West 58th Street and Eighth Avenue after popping off the cover to do cable work early Tuesday morning.
The Post reported that surveillance footage showed a person falling into the open manhole at 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 30.
The man walked past barricades that Verizon workers set up to prevent passersby from falling in. The workers didn’t know that there was a man inside when they placed the lid back on the manhole and left, the Post reports.
At 3:18 a.m., police responded to a worker’s 911 call regarding the body inside the manhole near Columbus Circle.
When the body was finally taken out of the manhole, it was in an advanced stage of decomposition and showed signs of having been eaten by animals, according to abc7.
Police are still determining the identity and cause of death but some investigators believe that the body might belong to a 30- to 40-year-old homeless man, according to The Daily News.
