Storage Unit Auction Leads To Gruesome Discovery

Police in Placer County, located in Northern California, are investigating a gruesome discovery a woman made in an abandoned storage unit that she purchased at auction. The storage unit was located in the city of Colfax, about 40 miles northeast of Sacramento.

According to the Placer County Sheriff’s office, Regina Zimmer, the woman who purchased the unit, called authorities to report a worrisome odor coming from her recently purchased storage unit. Upon investigation of the unit, deputies found a container containing what they initially believed to be the decomposing body of either a fetus or an infant. Upon examination of the remains, the deputy coroner was able to confirm that the remains were human, but that there were actually two, not one, decomposing bodies in the container.

Zimmer was with her 14-year-old son, Josh, when they made the gruesome discovery inside an ottoman that had been taped shut and marked “fragile.”

As she recounted, “We untaped it, opened it up and the smell that came out was like something I’d never smelled before.”

There were dozens of trash bags within the ottoman. Zimmer felt immediately that something was wrong, and so she contacted the manager of the storage unit. The manager began to examine the contents of the ottoman, and soon discovered something that looked like blood. At that point, the authorities were alerted.

Responding deputies investigated, and within a container in the ottoman, they made the horrible discovery of the remains.

“They found a lot of food, like it was thrown with the trash,” Josh Zimmer recalled. “They got to a towel, pulled out the towel a little bit and there was a skull and jawbone.”

According to the Sacramento Bee, the woman who previously rented the storage unit, and who is believed to be the mother of the two fetuses or infants found within the container, has been located. Sheriff’s officials confirmed that the woman has been interviewed.

The local authorities are now waiting for the results of forensic and toxicology reports before determining how to proceed. Whether the remains within the container were fetuses or infants would have a major impact on what charges would be brought against the mother, and forensic reports could provide that information, as well as details on how the two may have died.

At this point, it’s simply unknown if a crime was even committed, or if it was just bad judgment on the part of the mother.

“There’s a lot we just don’t know as far as were they viable pregnancies, were they miscarriages,” Placer County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Dena Erwin says. “Just a lot of unanswered questions right now.”

“I think about it all the time. I just don’t understand how somebody could do that,” Zimmer said. “I don’t understand how a mother could just throw their baby in the trashcan.”

This is not the first time a shocking discovery has been made within a storage unit. Read about the 12 dead bodies found in another storage unit here.

[Image via selfstorageguidesite.com]