Neighbors wake to loud boom, find dismembered body at DeKalb apartment complex

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — An explosion rocked a DeKalb County apartment complex early Sunday morning and when the sun came up, neighbors made a gruesome discovery.

Neighbors told Channel 2's Lauren Davis they were awakened by a loud boom around 1:30 a.m.
Adrienne Hall said she found the body. She initially thought it was a Halloween prank.

“What I see is this leftover Halloween mannequin,” Hall said is what she initially thought.

Then she called her fiancé to take a look.

“It didn’t look like a Halloween decoration,” said Kevin Harris. “I don’t know anyone in this neighborhood who would go to that kind of detail.”

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Harris called the police, who determined it was a body.

Hazmat crews dressed in blue biohazard suits spent the day trying to figure out what happened.

It all started with an explosion in the middle of the night.

“It wasn’t even like something backfired, it was like something was being blown up,” neighbor Terri Williams said.

“I heard the boom and I thought it was a gunshot,” said Tiera Morton.

When neighbors realized it was an explosion, they told Davis, they were upset.

“You got folks living around you, you could have killed somebody. You could have killed babies,” Morton said.

Now, Hall said she is trying to cope with what she saw.

“I’m just a wave of emotion. Started out angry. Now my heart is heavy because this is a person. His family has to be notified,” Hall said.

Hall told Davis she got a good look at the body, but she did not know who it was.

Police have not said what caused the explosion.

Cox Media Group