Fla. clerk who mistook body for mannequin fired
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A 61-year-old front desk clerk at a Florida apartment complex has been fired after mistaking the body of a tenant for a mannequin and throwing it in a trash bin.
The Tampa Tribune (http://bit.ly/1sgrkrQ) reports that Ronald Benjamin told police he saw the body in the parking lot of the 16-story St. Petersburg apartment building early Wednesday and assumed someone put a mannequin there as part of an April Fool's Day prank.
A co-worker arrived and told him a body was in the parking lot, but he insisted it was a mannequin. He got a newspaper carrier and her son to help him toss the body in the garbage. A maintenance worker saw the body and called authorities.
Police say the body was that of a 96-year-old woman who jumped from her apartment balcony.
