Body of 12-year-old ID’d after being found in Philadelphia dumpster; still no suspects
An intense search is underway in Philadelphia for the person who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy, whose body was discovered in a dumpster last week.
The victim was identified by the medical examiner’s office as Hezekiah Bernard on Thursday, just more than a week after he turned up dead, NBC Philadelphia reported.
On the morning of Aug. 23, authorities received a call from sanitation workers collecting garbage at the Arch Houses, a Philadelphia Housing Authority property. When they arrived on the scene just after 10:20 a.m., the workers directed police to a trash can behind a PHA dump truck, where they discovered Bernard’s body.
Bernard suffered from a gunshot to the back of the head and his body was wrapped in plastic, according to Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit. His death is being investigated as a murder, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
It’s still unclear when exactly Bernard was killed and for how long he’d been in the dumpster. Ransom noted that the preteen had not been reported missing in recent weeks and that his family is shocked and devastated by the loss.
No suspects have been identified.
The grisly incident comes despite the fact that Philadelphia police crime data shows homicides overall are down 20% in the city this year, compared to the first eight months of 2022.
