The body of Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed sat for days on the balcony at top right; neighbors thought the corpse was a Halloween decoration. (Nancy Pastor / For the Times / October 16, 2009)
Posted on 10/21/2009 6:50:25 AM PDT by JoeProBono
The body of 75-year-old man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the lifeless figure was part of a Halloween display and didn't call police. Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed had apparently been dead since Monday with a single gunshot wound to one eye.
He was slumped over a chair on the third-floor balcony of his apartment on Bora Bora Way, said cameraman Austin Raishbrook, who owns RMG News and was on the scene Thursday when authorities were alerted to the body.
Neighbors told Raishbrook that they noticed the body Monday "but didn't bother calling authorities because it looked like a Halloween dummy," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The body of Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed sat for days on the balcony at top right; neighbors thought the corpse was a Halloween decoration. (Nancy Pastor / For the Times / October 16, 2009)
Weekend at Bernies!
Bummer........
One more reason why I think Halloween is a sick holiday. I have nothing to do with it. It’s always been from the dark side, and recently it has lost what little innocence it ever had. The fact that people would assume that a dead body is a Halloween decoration says a lot.
Not actually a high decorated building in the spirit of Halloween. Based on the LA Times article, it’s not exactly Melrose Place. The deceased was well-dressed and active, which puts him ahead of most of the elderly in my neighborhood - and they’re alive!
I Love LA!
“...The fact that people would assume that a dead body is a Halloween decoration says a lot.”
But I’ve noticed that cadavers often seem to have an unrealistic quality. The body no longer has a spirit and thus it remains little more than a dummy. Actually I like that C.S. Lewis quote, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
As for Halloween I still think of it as traditional Americana. It is just as American as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya.
Something similar happened a few years ago, just a little ways from my home-
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/halloween.asp
The Frederica, DE story, that is.
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