LOS ANGELES — Residents at a California apartment building failed to alert police to the body of their dead neighbor because they thought it was a Halloween display, local media reported Saturday.
The decomposing body of Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed, 75, had lain in plain view of neighbors, slumped over a balcony chair, for at least three days before police were called to the Marina Del Rey building on Thursday.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Zayed had a single gunshot wound to one eye, and had apparently been dead since Monday.
Neighbors told a reporter with RMG News that they noticed the body on Monday "but didn't bother calling authorities because it looked like a Halloween dummy."
An official with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told the newspaper that Zayed's death was "an apparent suicide," but no further details were available.
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