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WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah, April 6, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — A survey crew working outside the former Kmart store in West Valley City has discovered human remains.
The crew made the discovery at 12:20 p.m. Friday at the building, at 4100 South and 1770 West, just off Redwood Road.
Sgt. Scott Arnold, West Valley City Police Department, told Gephardt Daily that officers were summoned to the scene on a suspicious-circumstances call.
The crew was doing a survey of an underground drainage culvert that ran under the parking lot in preparation for construction by the site’s new owner, Arnold said.
“They (surveyors) lifted the lid in an overflow area and found a body, partially submerged,” Arnold said. “The age, race and sex are unknown because a lot of the body was covered in water.”
That also made it impossible to estimate how long the body had been there, Arnold said.
Officials were preparing to the remove the body as of 4 p.m., and the medical examiner was coming to pick up the remains for an autopsy to be performed Saturday or Monday, Arnold said.
The plate that covered the area over the body was not screwed down, and could have been lifted by anyone, Arnold said. The pipes leading to the overflow area were too small for a body to fit through.
Although Arnold did not want to speculate, he agreed that it was more likely that the body had entered through the opening that was covered by the plate.
