The Waycross Police Department and CSX Police are continuing to investigate the discovery of a body part last week in the CSX Rice Yard, Major Assistant Police Chief Danny Hampton said.
About 9 a.m., March 10, officers responded to a 911 call that workers in the CSX had found what appeared to be a human arm that had been severed. Officers arrived and saw the suspected body part, Hampton said.
“It wasn’t something that just happened yesterday,” Hampton said of the length of time the part had been removed from a body. “... I’ve worked (in Waycross) for 32 years. I don’t remember anything particularly similar to this.”
Authorities said the arm was located in the back portion of the rail yard, an area where trains are built and assembled.
Ware County Coroner David Jordan was called to the scene to assist with the incident.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab is testing the arm to determine who it may belong to and how it ended up at the Waycross rail yard.
According to statistics compiled by the Federal Railroad Administration, there are approximately 250 to 300 rail suicides annually in the United States among the hundred of “railway trespassing” incidents.
If anyone has any information about the incident, they’re asked to call WPD investigators at (912) 2872929, the WPD Main Office at (912) 287- 2921, or the WPD Tip Line at (912) 287-2924.
