A dog seen carrying a human head along a California sidewalk managed to lead investigators to a decomposing body on Thursday.
Dog trots down the street with severed human head
The Fresno Police Department responded to the scene in Downtown Fresno after a witness saw the dog with the head drop it on a sidewalk.
After searching the area, police were able to locate the headless body a block away from where the canine was first seen.
NBC 15 reported that the dog took the dismembered head from a shed where the rest of the body was discovered.
Detectives are not yet treating the death as a homicide, as the exact cause of death will not be known until an autopsy is performed by the coroner’s office.
Police are still investigating how the victim died and why the body was left in the shed.
Dog carries human head from crime scene
In a similar case in north-central Mexico in 2022, residents were shocked to see a dog trotting around with a human head in its mouth.
The incident happened in crime-ridden Zacatecas, and police eventually managed to retrieve the head from the dog.
After investigating, local officials found out that he head, along with other body parts, had been left in an ATM booth with a message referring to a drug cartel.
A stray dog took the head before police were able to process the crime scene.
A video on social media showed the dog plodding down a dark street, happily clamping onto the head by the neck, likely going to eat it.
Zacatecas is plagued by a turf war between local gangs beholden to rival drug cartels from Sinaloa and Jalisco. Drug cartels in Mexico often leave dismembered human remains with notes as an intimidation tactic.
Dog carries severed arm, but police can’t locate human head
The same year in Mississippi, a stray dog was spotted carrying a severed arm, which launched a police investigation.
The arm was found on a street near an abandoned home, and was later determined to belong to 53-year-old Scott Allen Tyler.
During the investigation, police found a decapitated body inside the house in the woods, but were unable to find the head.
“That is a very graphic and brutal picture, the mutilation of a body,” said Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba remarked about the incident.
“My reaction is one of disgust, is one of concern. It’s not something you grow accustomed to. It’s never something you want to grow accustomed to.”
Dog runs four miles to save owner
On a lighter note, man’s best friend saved its owner’s life by running for miles and bringing back rescuers to the scene of a car crash in Oregon earlier this summer.
The Baker County Sheriff’s Office said deputies found out that a vehicle had gone over an embankment” on a forest service road.
“The reporting party explained that his brother, Brandon Garrett, had not made it to his camp yesterday afternoon,” the department detailed in a Facebook post. “Family members located his vehicle this morning but were unable to reach it due to the terrain.”
He told the police that one of the beloved pets had traversed the four miles to their camp to alert them that something bad had happened.
When authorities got the the scene, the victims truck was flipped on its side in the middle of a creek.
The Baker County Search and Rescue Ropes Team had to used a high-line rope system to get to Garrett, then secured him in a rescue basket and pulled back over the ravine.
An investigation determined that Garrett was traveling with his four dogs when he “failed to negotiate a curve, causing the vehicle to plummet off the embankment.”
He was able to crawl 100 yards away from the truck, and forced to spend the night in the elements.
“The rest of the party continued to search for him, and family members located his vehicle on the morning of June 3rd,” the post read. “The three remaining dogs were found alive at the crash scene.”
