Two bodies found in pile of horse manure

The bodies of two unidentified men were discovered on Sunday buried in a 15-foot-tall pile of manure at a small horse farm in Gary, Indiana. A man who kept horses at the stable noticed an arm sticking out of the massive pile of manure and called police, said Gary Det. Cpl. Mike Barnes.

Police unearthed the body and used a backhoe to sift through the steaming mound of composting manure in search of other remains, eventually finding the second body, Barnes said. "It was the biggest pile of (manure) I have ever seen," Barnes said. "They've been putting it back there for years."



Both bodies appear to be of white or Hispanic men, one about 5 feet 7 inches tall, the other about 6 feet. The bodies, one of them wrapped in plastic, were bloated, but investigators said it is difficult to judge how long they had been left there because heat generated by the breakdown of the manure might have sped up their decomposition, Barnes said.

The Lake County Coroner’s office has made a preliminary finding of homicide, but further details are pending completion of a full autopsy. The stables are rented out by the owner, mostly to close friends who tend their own horses and who have for years piled manure from the horse stalls in the same spot.