A man's body was found inside the leg of a papier-mache stegosaurus statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Spain, in an unusual accidental death case that puzzled authorities.
Discovery by father and son
The discovery was made in 2021 when a father and son, out for a Saturday afternoon stroll, noticed a foul odour emanating from the statue positioned outside a building. Upon closer inspection, they spotted a body through a crack in the statue's hollow leg.
The remains belonged to a 39-year-old man, who was retrieved by the regional police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra.
Accidental death confirmed
A spokesperson for the authorities explained that the man appeared to have climbed into the dinosaur's leg headfirst while trying to retrieve a mobile phone he had dropped, becoming trapped and unable to free himself.
"It's an accidental death; there was no violence," she confirmed at the time. "This person got inside the statue's leg and got trapped. It looks as though he was trying to retrieve a mobile phone, which he'd dropped. It looks like he entered the statue headfirst and couldn't get out."
Rescue and aftermath
The interior of the statue was so narrow that three fire brigade teams were called to the scene and had to cut open the leg to recover the body.
The man had been reported missing by his family just hours before his body was found, though police believed he had likely been trapped for a couple of days. They were unable to establish exactly how he had become stuck upside down.
Multiple Spanish news outlets, including El País and La Vanguardia, covered the case, highlighting the significant attention it attracted locally and nationally due to its extraordinary circumstances. The statue, which served as ornamental signage for a former cinema, was removed by the city council after the discovery.
