The dead body of a 75-year-old man was left on a Los Angeles balcony for several days because neighbours thought it was a Halloween display.

The body of Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed was found slumped over a chair on the balcony of his third-floor apartment with a single gunshot wound to the eye.

Neighbours had seen the body nearly a week before but hadn’t called police because they thought the corpse “looked like a Halloween dummy”.

Cameraman Austin Raishbrook was at the apartment in the Marina del Rey district when the authorities were finally alerted to the body, reports the Daily Telegraph.

“The body was in plain view of the entire apartment complex and they all didn’t do anything. It’s very strange. It did look unreal, to be honest,” he said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are treating the death as an apparent suicide.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.