Mannequin leg spotted in dumpster prompts police response

Police officers and detectives were called to a downtown dumpster Thursday after three archivists with the Wisconsin Historical Society spotted a leg.

One of the archivists noticed the leg in the dumpster while looking out a window to a loading dock as the employees were moving boxes inside a building on East Washington Avenue.

The leg and foot were sticking out from beneath a pile of refuse.

The first officer at the scene said it appeared to be a human leg, dressed in jeans and wearing wool-looking socks and a tennis shoe.

Detectives and a specially trained investigator from the Madison Police Department Forensic Services Unit also arrived and suited up in hazmat gear. An investigator carefully moved some of the cushions and discovered that the leg was attached to the body of a headless mannequin.