Coroner makes strange discovery after body reported at Ohio road work site

GRANVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) -- A report of human remains found during road work near Granville turned out to be something less tragic, but much weirder.

The Licking County Sheriff's Office sent deputies on Tuesday to the area north of Granville on reports of a body. Workers had used an excavator machine to remove trash bags from a drainage ditch. However, one of the bags ripped open and revealed a woman's feet and legs covered in dirt and grass.

Renee Rogers, an investigator with the Licking County Coroner's Office, told NBC4 that the sheriff's office then called to get her involved.

"It didn't necessarily match the way a human body reacts to being outside," Rogers said. "So they asked me to come out and confirm if they were human or not."

Rogers arrived at a ditch along New Burg Street to check on the body. She noted that the human remains looked different from what the coroner's office normally expects.

"There was some discoloration of the skin," Rogers said. "It was obvious that it had been outside for a period of time, but there was no insect activity and no smell associated with whatever it might be."

After she began her investigation, she found that this case wasn't what it initially seemed like.

"I photographed the scene, and then when I was able to get closer, the skin did not have a normal appearance," Rogers said. "Once we opened the bag a little bit, it was pretty obvious that it was an adult-size mannequin."

In field case reports, both a Licking County Sheriff's detective and a deputy described the mannequin the team found as a "silicone sex doll." However, Rogers said she did not see anything that identified the replica as specifically that.

"My role in the investigation was basically just to determine if it was human or non-human," Rogers said. "There was a full mannequin body, just a bit disassembled ... I'm not exactly sure what material that it was made out of, but it definitely was softer."

Rogers said she didn't keep the photos she took, because the coroner's office did not generate a case for this incident. Deputies took the mannequin to the sheriff's office and later destroyed it, according to the detective's report.