Body found in luggage near Seattle (again)

A badly decomposed body was discovered on Monday in a duffle bag near a dumpster in the city of SeaTac, Wash., the second time since May that human remains have been found stuffed into luggage in the Seattle area.

The body was discovered at about 8:30 a.m. when a maintenance worker came across the suitcase at a dumpster in an apartment complex in SeaTac, home to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, King County Sheriff's spokesman Stan Seo said.

The worker became suspicious and called police, who opened the bag and found the remains of a person in such a decomposed state that the age and gender could not immediately be determined, Seo said.

The body was turned over to the King County Medical Examiner's Office for further examination, he said.

In mid-June law enforcement officials asked for the public's help in solving the mystery behind a woman's body found in a suitcase and left near a river outside of Seattle.

That suitcase, discovered on May 27 near the Green River Bridge in Kent, contained the body of a white woman believed to be in her 50s or 60s who likely died in the first week of May, the King County Sheriff said in a statement at the time.

The woman, who was described as small in stature and dressed in what appeared to be sleeping clothes, had suffered no major injuries and it was unclear if she was killed or died of natural causes. An autopsy found she was properly nourished but suffered from cirrhosis of the liver.

Seo said investigators did not believe the two cases were related.

Detectives are still trying to identify the woman.