A five-hour police search for a “dead body” took an unexpected turn when officers realised the “corpse” was actually a realistic sex doll.
A dog walker came across what looked like a woman’s body at a demolition site in Rostock, north-eastern Germany, around 8pm on Saturday.
The doll, designed to resemble a human, had reportedly been burned before being stuffed into a blue Ikea bag.
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According to German news outlet Nordkurier, investigators suspect that someone deliberately set fire to parts of the doll and dumped it in a public space.
We explore how the police investigation unfolded, what happened after the discovery, and how officers eventually figured out it was not a real person.
The ‘murder’ enquiry
A passerby spotted what appeared to be a burnt human hand sticking out of a plastic bag in Rostock, leading to an immediate police response.
According to a report by The Times, homicide detectives and forensic experts arrived at the scene, setting up floodlights and a 3D scanner to capture a detailed record of what seemed like a gruesome crime scene.
A drone was deployed, and an undertaker was called in preparation for what they assumed would be a body retrieval.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOfficers sealed off the area, took photographs of the evidence, and carefully measured the ‘remains’ with a ruler.
Investigators suspected that the doll was deliberately burned and dumped in a public space.
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How did the police realise it was just a sex doll?
It took more than five hours for investigators to realise the ‘body’ was actually a high-end sex doll, often called a “real doll” due to its lifelike appearance and lack of inflatable parts.
It appeared that the owner attempted to burn the doll before dumping it in the undergrowth.
According to Daily Mail, the truth became clear when one of the investigators finally touched the ‘corpse’ and immediately noticed it was made of synthetic material rather than human flesh.
A funeral director, initially called to transport the ‘remains’ to a morgue, was informed their services were no longer required. Instead, police took the sex doll away for proper disposal.
“All police measures were immediately terminated,” the police was quoted as saying by The Times.
“The undertaker could fortunately be cancelled. The police would like to take this opportunity to ask people to dispose of their rubbish in the appropriate locations.”
Commenting on the bizarre mix-up, a police spokeswoman laughed and said, “We can write this off as an exercise. Fortunately, we don’t get this every day.”
The rise in sex doll-related police callouts
According to The Times, police callouts involving sex dolls have been on the rise in recent years, as the dolls have become so realistic that they are often mistaken for human remains.
Owners, seemingly too embarrassed to dispose of them properly, abandon them in public places rather than risk being spotted trying to fit them into recycling bins.
Just this Monday, police in the German city of Bingen responded to reports of a life-sized doll lying on a bench.
Last week, authorities were called to investigate a suspected human body part in a field near Bad Kreuznach, only to discover it was a silicone backside. In February, firefighters in Germany’s Hanover retrieved what appeared to be a body floating in a canal- only to find another discarded doll.
Such incidents are not limited to Germany. In August 2022, panic spread among beachgoers in Thailand when a ‘naked body’ was spotted on Bang Saen beach in Chonburi, east of Bangkok.
Witnesses reported what appeared to be a dead woman lying on the shore, her head covered with a t-shirt. Paramedics and police rushed to the scene, bracing for the worst - only to find a sex doll, reportedly a Japanese model known as ‘AV Idol’. Police suspected it had drifted in from a river before washing up on the beach, according to Daily Mail.
Earlier that same year, a similar case unfolded in the US state of Georgia. Police responding to reports of a woman’s body along a hiking trail in the Hitchiti National Forest arrived to find a discarded life-sized doll.
At first, the dirt-covered figure, dressed in blue shorts and a pink tube top, seemed human. However, upon closer inspection, deputies quickly realised the ‘body’ was nothing more than a well-worn sex doll.
With inputs from agencies