Florida officials launched an investigation after a severed human head was discovered by horrified beachgoers on a Key Biscayne beach, just south of Miami Beach, Tuesday morning.
The Miami-Dade Police Department arrived at the beach around 8:40 a.m. after receiving multiple reports about a human head on the sand.
The head was originally found by a worker raking the beach, police said. It’s unclear if the head belonged to a man or woman, and police are working with the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the person’s identity.
A spokesman for the Miami-Dade police said that it is too early to tell if the decapitation is connected to any recent cases in the area, including one concerning a teenager who went missing just off the coast of Miami Beach on Saturday.
The grisly find rocked the residents of the barrier island.
“We have seen all things here but nothing like what was found this morning, the head of a person. It makes us scared to go to the beach that we love,” Bahman Amini, who has lived in a nearby condominium building for 40 years, told CBS News Miami.
“This is shocking, shocking. You don’t hear a lot about that. You heard about drugs washing up on shore and things like that, but a head!” Miami resident Marcelo Borrelli told the outlet.
Tourists visiting the Sunshine State were also left shaken and worried.
“That’s pretty scary and crazy. I have never heard of anything like this happening before on this kind of beach,” Alex Portuondo, a Denver tourist who used to live in South Florida, told CBS News Miami.
“I guess I am curious if they have any information on where it came from, if anything else has been found, if it happened here on the island or washed up on the shore. I guess I assume it might have happened someplace else and washed up here but I do worry because of this.”
