Houston police are investigating the death of a man who was found in the back seat of a patrol vehicle by a police officer.
The man was found on Dec. 21 after an officer with the Mental Health Division went to begin his shift and found the remains in the marked HPD Ford Explorer, according to a police statement on social media.
The back seat is designed to keep people in custody from escaping.
Police said that the man might have crawled into the vehicle to seek shelter from the cold weather, and he could be homeless.
The man’s identity was not released before it could be confirmed by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, along with the cause of death. Police said only that he was in his 40s.
KHOU-TV said police indicated there was no alarm in the car to indicate the presence of a person. Police also told the station they were reviewing surveillance video to determine how the man got into the vehicle.
The man was not in custody, according to police, who said that the man probably crawled through the rear of the cage into the cargo area and became trapped. The back seat is designed to keep people in custody from escaping.
Police said that the officer had parked the vehicle about three days before the man was found, so he could have been trapped inside the car for as many as three days.
Police are seeking help from the public to investigate the incident.
Images from the scene can be viewed on KHOU’s news video report on YouTube.
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