'Bloody box' labelled ‘human remains’ found at side of road contained a tomato and an onion

A seemingly bloody box marked “human remains” was found at the side of a road in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Thursday morning but contained only a tomato and an onion. Multiple bright labels with the words “medical shipment” and “handle with extreme care” were stamped all over the box and red smears that looked like blood were also on the cardboard container found at about 8am. The red fluid on the outside of the box was not blood.

Horry County police say someone alerted them after they found the box. EMS claimed the box until Horry County Coroner Robert Edge came to the scene and collected it. Now authorities believe the incident could be a prank, according to Lt. Raul Denis with Horry County Police. “I don’t think we’re going to spend the time and resources to investigate something so silly where all we’re looking at is maybe a littering charge,” Denis said.
Denis said police will look at the coroner’s report when it becomes available and determine their next step. The box appeared to be a human waste decontamination box and could have held some type of human medical waste, Edge said before he discovered the two vegetables inside. He opened the box at about 10:30am and examined its contents with Forensic Pathologist Edward Proctor Jr.

Proctor also tested the fluid that looked like blood on the box’s outside and determined it wasn’t. Edge said they hadn’t determined what exactly the fluid was, but said it looked like it may be water mixed with red food coloring. Edge said he wasn’t sure if someone who worked in a medical office simply put trash inside the sealed box and lost it along their route to throw it away, or if the entire situation was a hoax.