Los Angeles

Body Found in Refrigerator in Apartment: Police

Neighbors revealed disturbing accounts of what life was like living next to an apartment where a man was found dead inside of a refrigerator in Los Angeles Tuesday.  

The reports came in at 10 a.m. from the 600 block of West 57th Street in the Vermont-Slauson area, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Police said the man was in his 40s, and he lived in the apartment where he was found.

A maintenance worker went inside the apartment to fix something because the resident was set to be evicted and discovered the body inside of the refrigerator.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the body had been there. The cause of death was not clear as no wounds were found on the body.  Police said there was also no sign of forced entry. 

Neighbors told NBC4 that the man who lived in the apartment had been there for a few years, but recently began acting strangely.

Residents would hear him screaming at odd hours of the day.

"He would yell all hours of the day and night," neighbor Fabian Morales said. "He threatened to blow up the building, the neighborhood. He said he would make 9/11 look like child's play."

Neighbors also said they at one point pressed charges against the man for "putting his hands on" Morales and his wife. 

Morales said he recorded his neighbor and gave the audio to police when he heard odd and disturbing things being shouted.

"I could be cutting heads off and switching them around and you'll never find the (bleep) bodies!" can be heard in the audio recording.

"His brother actually came over, saying, he actually went to the hospital for some mental breakdown," Rachel Lackey, neighbor, said.

When asked about the odd behavior, police would not elaborate. 

"We don't know the exact cause of death," Det. Chris Barling of the LAPD said. "The person was not shot, not stabbed. There are other injuries that we're concerned about. So we're treating it as a homicide case."

Police also declined to discuss the fact that the body was found in a refrigerator, but neighbors were stunned. 

"It's kind of like a Jeffrey Dahmer thing, you know?" Veta Green, neighbor, said. "Body in the refrigerator — I mean, really? The scary part is, who did this and where are they at now?" 

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