FLORIDA APARTMENT COMPLEX EMPLOYEE DUMPED WOMAN’S BODY HE THOUGHT WAS A MANNEQUIN IN TRASH BIN

I feel almost as sorry for the 61-year-old front desk clerk as for the 96-year-old woman who jumped to her death.

CLERK MISTOOK BODY FOR MANNEQUIN, THREW IT IN TRASH

Associated Press
April 4, 2014

A 61-year-old front desk clerk at a Florida apartment complex has been fired after mistaking the body of a tenant for a mannequin and throwing it in a trash bin.

The Tampa Tribune reports that Ronald Benjamin told police he saw the body in the parking lot of the 16-story St. Petersburg apartment building early Wednesday and assumed someone put a mannequin there as part of an April Fool's Day prank.

A co-worker arrived and told him a body was in the parking lot, but he insisted it was a mannequin. He got a newspaper carrier and her son to help him toss the body in the garbage. A maintenance worker saw the body and called authorities.

Police say the body was that of a 96-year-old woman who jumped from her apartment balcony.