Philadelphia ‘Thriller’: Passersby Find Infant Casket In Trash Bag, What They See Inside Shocks Them

For this group of Philadelphia residents, the scene might have been straight out of a horror movie.

When Chris James and a group of other passersby found an infant casket wrapped around a trash bag on the street across a cemetery in Philadelphia, they did not know what to expect inside. They thought it could be an animal or toxic waste, and did not want to take any chances. So the group of people informed authorities about the unusual occurrence. By the time police arrived, the group of people had assumed that the casket might only be a false alarm or a silly prank that somebody intended to play on them.

However, the contents of the casket shocked all bystanders.

“I was pretty shocked,” said James. “It looked like something straight out of ‘Thriller.'”

Infant Casket With Human Organs Inside Found On North Philly Sidewalk https://t.co/A6jreYpvj1 pic.twitter.com/XeZdJyUjOc

— CBS Philadelphia (@CBSPhiladelphia) July 4, 2017

The casket contained a plastic bag, which had some dirt inside it and “something organic,” as described by James to Philly.com. Upon further investigation, it became clear that the bag contained human organs. Moreover, while that in itself is disturbing, what was even more unusual was that there was no body in the casket, according to Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

“According to the medical examiner, [they] were in fact human organs. They believed they belonged to an infant or a child. What’s unusual is inside the coffin, other than the bag of organs, there was no body.”

Small went on to say that the casket was “fresh” and had been recently intervened with. It does leave open the possibility that it might have been dug out from Mt. Vernon, the cemetery across the street, or even that somebody might have stolen it. The investigators are not leaving out any possibility.

“There have been cases where people take remains or human bodies for whatever unusual reasons they decide, but we’re going to look into that,” Small added.

While unrelated to the present case in a direct sense, the infant body organs found on the Philadelphia street might remind one of the infamous Alder Hey organs scandal of the mid 1990s, in which body organs from more than 850 infants was uncovered in 2000 pots at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, England.

One can only hope the Philadelphia street “Thriller” is just an isolated case.

[Featured Image by Anne Kitzman/Shutterstock.com]