Barrel with body of naked man found in Malibu

A naked body stuffed into a plastic barrel was discovered by a lifeguard Monday near Malibu’s Surfrider State Beach, prompting a murder investigation by local authorities.

The as-yet unidentified Black male victim was discovered shortly after 10 a.m. local time when a Malibu Beach lifeguard “noticed the 55-gallon plastic barrel drum floating in the lagoon,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release.

Neither a cause of death nor information about a suspect has yet been made public by the sheriff’s department, whose homicide bureau is handling the investigation.

It is unclear how long the remains had been inside the container or where exactly it came from, The Associated Press reports.

A state park maintenance worker spotted the container Sunday and used a kayak to bring it closer to shore, though the barrel proved “too heavy” and the worker “didn’t want to open it, so they left it on shore,” Lt. Hugo Reynaga said at a news conference. He added that high tide could have brought the barrel in from the ocean before it ultimately “got stuck in the lagoon,” though authorities remain unsure.

The lifeguard, who was not publicly identified in the department’s release, was the one to ultimately retrieve and open the barrel, making the grisly discovery.

“From what I did see it didn’t look to me like it was decomposed or had been there a long time,” said Reynaga.

The initial report was traced near both Surfrider as well as Malibu Lagoon State Beach. A representative for California State Parks told NBC News on Monday that the majority of the beach will stay open and that the agency “is working closely with the lead investigative entity on the incident.”

With News Wire Services