A 12-year-old boy was exploring an abandoned house in Dayton, Ohio, when he found a mummified corpse hanging in a closet on Sunday afternoon.

Mummified Corpse Found In Abandoned House

The boy’s mother, Michelle McGrath, explained that her son has simply entered the run-down house, which has become overgrown from years of abandonment, to explore when he stumbled upon the body.

“[He] came home and he said to me that he had gone into an abandoned house and he found a body. And I said, ‘Wait, what?’” recounted McGrath.

Though her son thought that the corpse was a mannequin at first, McGrath went to investigate and confirmed the authenticity of the body.

“When I crossed the threshold of the room, is when I smelled it,” she said.

McGrath called the police and authorities arrived to find the body undisturbed.

Remains Believed To Be Edward Burton

“He was found suspended from the neck still from a belt in the closet. So it appears to be a suicide,” said coroner Kent Harshbarger.

Investigators believe that the remains are those of Edward Burton, who bought the house in 2009. Neighbors told authorities that they believed the house to be abandoned and uninhabited. Burton is believed to have committed suicide a few months after purchasing the home. Due to his estrangement from friends and family, he was never reported missing.

Neighbors barely knew Burton, so nobody noticed sudden disappearance, and McGrath told reporters that one had told her that he did recall the smell of a rotting corpse coming from the home, but assumed it was a dead animal.

“One of them said to me, ‘I smelled something one day, but I thought something crawled and died underneath the shed,’” McGrath recounted.

Due to the body’s placement in the closet, decomposition was slowed, leaving the corpse to mummify.

“Because of the location where he was found, it was relatively protected, sunlight-protected, temperature-protected and low humidity,” Harshbarger revealed.