Authorities in Florida have confirmed that the severed head found washed up on a Miami beach last week belongs to a 19-year-old swimmer who reportedly got caught in a riptide.
The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiners office confirmed that the remains found on Nov. 12 belonged to 19-year-old Victor Castaneda Jr. He went missing on Nov. 9 when he and his 17-year-old sister caught in a rip current, according to police. Castaneda was able to save his sister but then got pulled out by the current. His head would wash up three days later last Tuesday.
I do know that my little brother was in the water with my little sister, and he saved her life. He is a hero, said the victims sister, Chloe Castaneda.
Victor’s remains were found around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday and the worker raking the beach immediately alerted the Miami-Dade Police Department who responded to the scene and cordoned off the area of the beach where the head was found with police tape. Miami-Dade Police Detective Argemis Colom told CBS News that they have yet to determine if the head belonged to a male or a female.
Footage taken from a helicopter showed the scene as police covered the head with a blue tarp and held the tarp down using orange traffic cones. Residents of the area expressed their shock and horror upon learning of the news.
“You see all kinds of things here but nothing like this, like we saw this morning. The head of a person,” Bahman Amini told CBS News.
“This is my typical route. Our neighborhood is very safe,” another local told WPLG. “We have our children here; our children play on these beaches and it’s just beyond belief.”
The exact location where the head was found was on the Key Biscayne beach behind the Key Colony II Ocean Sound condominium building at 251 Crandon Blvd.
“That’s pretty scary and crazy,” Alex Portuondo, a former resident of South Beach visiting the area from Denver told CBS News. “I have never heard of anything like this happening before on this kind of beach. I guess I am curious if they have any information on where it came from, if anything else has been found, if it happened here on the island or washed up on the shore. I guess I assume it might have happened someplace else and washed up here but I do worry because of this.”
Kristy Sippel, a tourist from New York City, told the outlet “It is scary. I would like to know what happened.”
Mollie McAuliffe of Miami said, “I have questions about where it came from, where the remains came from. It is pretty upsetting.”
No additional information about the incident has been released by officials as of right now.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses.
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