Two human legs and other body parts have turned up on a shoreline in a swanky neighborhood of California.
A hiker found a human leg along the Palos Verdes Peninsula on Thursday. Authorities also discovered a femur, Palos Verdes Estates police Captain Aaron Belda told the Los Angeles Times.
The grisly discovery was made a day after a human leg washed ashore on the 800 block of Paseo Del Mar on Christmas Day. A fisherman’s boat that capsized on December 23 had turned up at that location earlier this week.
‘This is terrible,’ Palos Verdes resident John Crayton told NBC4 News.
‘It’s Christmas, it’s supposed to be a season of joy. My heart goes out to the family.’
A search using a county sheriff’s department cadaver dog at the time did not yield any more findings.
What condition the recovered remains were in was not immediately known.
The county medical examiner is working to identify the remains and determine if they were linked to the boat accident, according to Belda.
‘Our beaches are typically rock it’s my understanding that it was located at the shoreline but atop some rocks,’ said Belda.
‘At this time we’re not ruling anything out we’re considering all possibilities but we don’t have any reason to believe the two are connected.’
US Coast Guard members on Christmas Eve searched for two fisherman who did not return after their trip. The effort was paused due to dangerous winds and surf.
It is the second time that human parts have appeared in the area within a month. In November, a human skull and bones were found. It was not clear if the parts from both cases are connected.
The area has had a bout of rough weather. Further up the California coast on the same week that the boat capsized, a man was trapped and killed by high surf at Monterey Bay, and waves damaged the Santa Cruz Wharf.
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