Woman's Remains Found at 2 Water Plants Near LA

A grim case in California: The remains of what may be a single person have been found in two separate wastewater facilities outside Los Angeles. A head and torso were discovered at a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Industry as officials checked out a blocked line yesterday; on Saturday, a leg and foot were found in a water pollution plant in Carson, some 30 miles away, NBC Southern California reports. The two plants are interconnected. Police are treating the case as a homicide, KABC notes; the victim may be a Hispanic woman.

The body—whose left arm hasn't been found—could have been moving through a sewage line and dismembered by treatment gear, police say. The body may have been dropped through a manhole, they note, per CBS Los Angeles. "Anything coming into this plant comes in through a 72-inch line. It goes through a centrifugal pump, so you can imagine what kind of damage to a person’s body would happen," said a sheriff's lieutenant following yesterday's find. LA Weekly notes that the Industry facility does feed into the water supply, but a sanitation rep explained that because the remains were uncovered early in the treatment process, public health is not in jeopardy. (More murder stories.)