Cape Town - A badly decomposed body has been discovered in a chest freezer in the previously notorious city centre block of flats, Senator Park.
The gruesome find was made by construction workers doing renovations to the building on Tuesday.
Police spokesperson Andre Traut confirmed the incident was reported at about 2pm.
“The body was found in a chest freezer on the fifth floor by workers and we have no idea how and when the murder happened,” he said.
He said police would have to wait for the coroner’s report to determine the cause and date of death.
The building, on the corner of Keerom and Long streets, which has seven storeys and 168 individually owned flats, has been notorious for drug peddling and prostitution.
Last year, the High Court granted the Senator Park body corporate an order authorising the eviction of tenants and the upgrade of the building.
The court order directed that all the occupants, except a few who owned their flats, move out by July last year.
The owner of the flat in which the body was found, Bernadette Bailey, was shocked.
“
I can’t believe something like this has happened here. I mean, this is something you would expect to happen in a movie or something.”
Bailey said the flat belonged to her late mother and her mother’s boyfriend, but he moved out in June because the building was filled with shady characters and was unsafe.
“We took my mom’s boyfriend out because we felt the place was not safe for him anymore. We weren’t scared of the drug dealers in the building because they knew him and respected him.
Bailey said they put up heavy burglar gates on the flat and she does not know how the people who stashed the body, or the workers, got into the flat.
“The smell that came out of there was terrible, and the way the body was squashed into that fridge was terrible.” she said.
Traut said police could not identify the body or give any more details about it.
“We can’t even say what the gender of the body is because it has been so badly decomposed, but we have declared the area a crime scene.”