Authorities have opened an investigation after recovering garbage bags containing body parts that began appearing along the Fred Moore Highway and Allington Road in St Clair and China Townships on Thursday afternoon.

The investigation began after a motorist who lives in the area saw a garbage bag alongside the road and stopped and opened the bag to see what it contained. Inside were the remains of a human body. Some of the remains were described as “guts.”

The sickened driver returned to their car and drove a short distance, only to discover another garbage bag, this one had disgorged a portion of its contents alongside the road. A head had rolled out of the bag. Shortly thereafter, a third bag containing human remains was found. Police were called and the bags were recovered by authorities.

The Sheriff’s Department would later receive a tip from a caller reporting that they had seen a heavyset, middle-aged, white woman tossing garbage bags from her vehicle. The vehicle was described as a gray or tan sport utility vehicle that appeared to be a GMC Jimmy or Chevy Blazer.

Then, early Friday morning, another garbage bag was reported on the entrance ramp to I-94 from Fred Moore Highway. That bag contained clothing as well as charred paperwork. Authorities believe that that bag is connected with the bags found on Thursday.

Michigan authorities have developed leads as to the identity of what is described as a dismembered white male after contacting surrounding counties for missing persons. They believe that the remains are not of a resident of the county but the body of a person from one of the surrounding counties.

“Homicides, they are rare in our county. We do have, from time to time, body’s dropped – that are coming out of the metro area – but we’ve never had anything like this,” said Sheriff Tim Donnellon Friday morning. “We’ve not had a situation where somebody’s been cut up and put in garbage bags.”

An autopsy on the remains is scheduled to take place on Friday afternoon.