HAMPTON PARK: Body found at landfill

UPDATE: Homicide detectives are investigating the discovery of a man’s body at a landfill site in Hampton Park.

The body was found about 8.40am on Tuesday at a tip on Hallam Road, a police spokeswoman said.

The unidentified body was found by a tip worker who initially thought it was a mannequin, said Detective Senior Sergeant Shane O’Connell, from the homicide squad.

The remains were resting in a general rubbish dumping section of the waste facility, leaving police and forensics to scour a large and challenging crime scene through most of Tuesday.

Little is yet known about who the man was, how he died, or how his body ended up in the tip.

Detectives believe the body may have been carried in by a truck and are working with the site’s management to identify vehicles that came into the site between 6am and 8am, Senior Sergeant O’Connell said.

The tip manages a combination of household rubbish as well as industrial and commercial waste.

“At this stage we don’t know the circumstances of how the deceased got here, we are yet to identify him,” Senior Sergeant O’Connell said. 

“We believe that he was brought in in one of the trucks this morning.”

The body showed no obvious injuries, but was found in a semi-undressed state, which may be the result of disturbance from heavy machinery used at the site.

“At this stage we’re treating it as suspicious as the circumstances around him being here are obviously suspicious,” he said.

“It’s very disturbing, no one deserves to be in the position this gentleman finds himself in and placed in a landfill centre under these circumstances.”

Police are not aware of any missing men in the area.

Pathologists from the state coroner’s office were on the scene on Tuesday afternoon.

Once the crime scene investigation concludes late on Tuesday afternoon the body will be taken to the Coroner’s Court to be examined.