A Montgomery County Coroner’s Office official said the body could have been in the ditch for several days, and that an autopsy likely wouldn’t be done until Wednesday to allow the body to thaw.
Dayton police spokeswoman Cara Zinski-Neace said the body appears to be an adult but the sex is unknown. Police will determined the type of investigation to conduct after the coroner conducts an autopsy, she said.
“It’s too soon for us to say anything about what it is,” Zinski-Neace said. “The coroner needs to investigate and then we’ll take that information, so we have to wait until the autopsy can be performed.”
The coroner’s investigator at the scene said the last day warm enough for standing water not to be frozen was Feb. 8, and that may have been when the person ended up in the ditch. A preliminary cause of death could not be determined Monday.
The dog’s whereabouts were unknown Monday evening.
In her 911 call to dispatchers, Curtis said she thought the body, which was partially covered with snow, was wearing khaki pants, brown Nike boots and pink gloves. “This person’s dead,” Curtis said on the call. “It’s been sitting here for days and nobody noticed.”
Curtis said she noticed the dog when she walked across the road to the nearby Citizen Mart, returned home for some bread for the dog and then approached.
“The body was in the water,” she said. “One of the legs was frozen and covered in snow. I could tell from the waist down that it was a person.”
Curtis said she hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary in the area recently.
“I watch the news every day,” she said. “I haven’t seen anything on the news about anybody missing around this area or anything.”
Police had blocked off Germantown Pike near the 4500 block just before the border with Jefferson Twp. and diverted traffic through a neighborhood during the investigation.
“It was a scary sight for me to see,” Curtis said.
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