Casket with infant human organs found on street in North Philadelphia

NORTH PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- Police are investigating a bizarre discovery: infant human organs, placed inside a small, child-size casket that was found on a sidewalk.

Investigators were called to the 3000 block of West Clearfield Street just after 9 p.m. Monday.



Officers arrived to find a small, closed casket.

When they opened it, they found a plastic bag containing what the Medical Examiner later confirmed to be two human organs from an infant.

"The coffin appeared to be a fresh coffin," Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told Action News. "It was possibly taken from a funeral home or possibly dug from the ground from a fresh grave."

Police searched two nearby cemeteries to see if any graves had been disturbed, but saw no evidence of that.

They are contacting area funeral homes as they work to determine where the casket and organs came from, who left them there and why.

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