Dismembered Naked Body of Woman Found in NYC Park

The dismembered, naked body of an unidentified woman was discovered in a wooded area of a Brooklyn park Monday evening.

According to a New York Police Department statement, authorities were called to Canarsie Park, which is located on the Jamaica Bay waterfront, near East 86th Street and Seaview Avenue at approximately 6:10 p.m. Monday, where officers discovered "an unconscious and unresponsive female" near a pathway laying facedown, PEOPLE reports. The woman's limbs had been dismembered, though her head was still attached to her torso.

Police were first alerted to the woman's body by Patricia Smith, who had been walking her dog in the park when she noticed the body partially covered by leaves and other shrubbery.

"I was walking my dog at the same regular path, and as I went in the path and looked to the left I saw something resembling a garbage bag. But as I went by and looked back and looked again, I realized it was a body that was dismembered and then I just took off running," Smith told local station News 12 Brooklyn.

After running home and calling 911, Smith directed officers to where she had seen the body.

Canarsie resident Robert Clouden, 53, told The New York Daily News that he had also seen the woman's body earlier in the day while walking his dog, though he had assumed that it was not real.

"It was a path I don't normally take with him. I looked over to my left and I thought what I saw was a doll. It didn't have any clothing. But the torso was very small, so I thought it was a doll. And that's why I just left it and continued upon my walk with my dog, not realizing that it was actually a human being that was lying there," Clouden said.

When Clouden took his dog, Maxwell, back to the park later in the evening for another walk, he encountered the police scene and realized that what he had seen was real.

"This is a shock. It's a very quiet neighborhood. The park in the summertime is very well-used," he said.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene by a medical examiner. The investigation is still ongoing, with medical examiners working to determine the unidentified woman's cause of death. Police are working to identify the woman and discern how long her body had been in the park.