Human remains found in the shell of a scorched car have led to a chilling mystery in a quaint waterfront Maryland town, according to police.
The disturbing discovery was made Saturday night, police said, after a motorist called 911 to report a car on fire outside the Tropic Bay Aquatic Garden Center in Davidsonville, Md., a tony community about 40 minutes outside the nation’s capital.
When firefighters arrived, they found a car engulfed in flames. Once they extinguished the blaze, they discovered a scorched human body in the passenger side of the car, police said.
Cops are treating the car fire as a suspicious death investigation. What was left of the body was taken to the medical examiner for an autopsy and identification.
“That certainly changed our investigation from what appeared to be an initial vehicle fire to a suspicious death investigation,” Anne Arundel County police spokesperson Justin Mulcahy told WJZ News. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
The gruesome discovery shocked residents of the small and idyllic waterfront town, where the median sales price of a home is almost $1 million, and the average income is $223,135.
“My wife called and asked me if I heard what happened. I was just shocked,” local Pete Best told WJZ. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would happen in a small town.”
Best told the outlet that he was playing a gig next door to Tropic Bay at the time of the discovery.
“These kinds of things happen on TV, and then you go, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it’s right around the corner,’” Best said. “It kind of puts you on your heels a little bit for sure.”
The Anne Arundel County Fire and Explosives Investigations Unit is investigating the cause of the fire as detectives work to identify the victim – and determine how they ended up in the torched car, according to reports.
Regular customers of Tropic Bay, which specializes in koi fish and water features, were surprised to find it closed the following morning and surrounded with yellow police tape, according to WBAL.
The parking lot, with a sign that reads “America’s Premiere Aquatic Garden Center,” was still littered with toasted car parts from what WBAL called a recent model Ford.
Customers told the station that the owner never closed on the weekend since that was his busiest time. They worried about the animals inside the store and whether they were getting fed and cared for.
Mulcahy told WJZ that he is counting on witnesses or surveillance video to help solve the mystery.
“We’re going to talk to anybody who may have frequented that business,” Mulcahy said. “Certainly, any surveillance footage would be part of the investigation as well, or anything we can gather to assist our case right now.”
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