Volunteers Find Man's Body Stuffed in Suitcase While Cleaning Lake In California

A murdered man's body was found stuffed inside a suitcase during a cleanup of a lake in Oakland, California, on Halloween. According to the New York Post, volunteers were cleaning Lake Merritt on Tuesday morning when they spotted a suitcase floating at the edge of it. They used a small net to remove the suitcase and were left shocked to find a dead body in the suitcase.

The man appeared to be in his 30s and was crammed into the suitcase "kind of like in a fetal position,'' witnesses said. 

''I wasn't shocked, but I was surprised it was a body in there," said Kevin Shomo, among the crew volunteers with Lake Merritt Institute who found the suitcase.

"We kind of pulled it towards us closer using these net poles. We grabbed one end and we realized it was too heavy. So we pulled it close enough to us and we said, 'Oh wow, this thing is heavy' so we unzipped it and that's what we found," Mr Shomo said.

Oakland police Captain Alan Yu said a probe has been launched.

“Part of the investigation is trying to determine where the body could have floated from. It could be any part of the lake, and we're looking at all those possible outcomes. It was initially unclear if the murdered man matched anyone reported as a missing person,” Yu was quoted as saying by the New York Post.

Meanwhile, the cops are also investigating the finding as homicide and the victim's identity has been withheld pending family notification.

Lake Merritt is ''the jewel of Oakland' and the oldest designated wildlife refuge in the US'', according to the city's website. The discovery has left people shocked as it is a popular spot for joggers. 

"Oakland definitely has its crime, but to see something this gruesome is quite shocking," resident Shana O'Shae, 45, told Fox News. ''It's really scary for me, for a body to be around the neighborhood here, it's really scary,'' another witness Angela Massella told KTVU.

“This type of crime does seem uncharacteristic of the type of crime that has been happening in Oakland. I rode a crew on Lake Merritt in high school and back then we also ran over a dead body,” Zoe Siegel, a resident told ABC7 News.