Tips have come in from all around Greater Boston about the torso found on a Sandwich beach Wednesday night, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said Sunday.
Authorities are hoping to complete DNA tests on the remains by Monday, O’Keefe said. They then hope to construct a DNA profile of the victim and see if they can match that to records in a database.
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O’Keefe said state authorities have received numerous calls since asking for the public’s help identifying the body, which was found Wednesday night on Town Neck Beach wrapped in a tarp and strapped to a dolly, its head and limbs missing. The torso was clad in a blue T-shirt that read, “I Got Serviced” and bore the name of a Rhode Island company.
“Some of them are ready to be dismissed pretty readily,” O’Keefe said of the calls. “We still encourage people that think they have any knowledge of someone wearing that T-shirt, matching that physical description, to come to the police.”
Authorities believe the body was left on the beach between Monday and 7 or 8 p.m. Wednesday, when it was found by someone walking on the beach. O’Keefe called the death a homicide and said the usual methods of identifying the body have been hindered by the mutilation.
O’Keefe described the victim Friday as a black man, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, 220 to 230 pounds, with a 3- to 4-inch surgical scar on the right side of his abdomen.
An autopsy has been completed, but toxicology and other tests and results are pending. The victim appears to have been in good health, with no sign of natural disease, O’Keefe said.
“That could lead to a fair inference that the person is younger rather than older,” he said.
Local police departments have been alerted about the case and asked to watch for anything suspicious.
O’Keefe said the investigation “has been basically on a 24-hour basis since the discovery of the body and we’ll remain hopeful.”