Two men who went out to fish at the mouth of Tampa Bay got more than they ever bargained for on Saturday.
The two men were spearfishing, according to Fox News.
After one dive, as they were going from one spot to the next, they spotted a trash bag. At first, they went to take the litter out of the water, then realized that the bag did not contain garbage.
The fishermen cut open the bag, which was made of canvas and plastic, and saw human skin as well as the strap of what might either have been a bra or a bikini top.
Woman’s body found in trash bag off Florida’s gulf coast: FBI https://t.co/9idQv77kmw
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 13, 2022
They looked no further but put in a call to the Coast Guard, which responded at about 12:40 p.m.
The St. Petersburg Police Department responded as well as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, according to WFTS-TV.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now the lead agency because the woman’s body was found in federal waters, Andrea Aprea, a representative of the Tampa FBI office, said, according to the Daily Mail.
Captain Dylan Hubbard, who runs Hubbard’s Marina, said he and his crew heard the distress call.
Hubbard then asked what was taking place.
‘He said, “You see that plastic trash bag in front of our boat? That’s a dead body,'” Hubbard said the captain of the boat told him.
“They’re on a small boat, it’s up close and personal, you don’t forget that picture,” he said.
The woman has not yet been identified. According to WESH-TV, officials said she appears to be middle-aged.
The body was found 13 miles away from the shore, off the coast of Egmont Key.
Floating objects near Florida have more often contained drugs.
For example, last December, a boater found a package containing nearly 70 pounds of cocaine. The drugs were found at sea off Islamorada in the Upper Keys, Customs and Border Protection Division Chief Adam Hoffner said, according to the Miami Herald.
The spring of 2021 was a busy time for finding drugs. In March, a haul of 25 bricks of cocaine was found floating in the Keys. On April 30, a boater off Key Largo hauled in about 73 pounds of cocaine valued at $1.7 million. The very next day, a boater made the catch of a 62-pound haul of marijuana valued at $100,000.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.