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A Tennessee woman was driving to her mother’s house when she noticed something strange in a field off the road. First she thought it might be a neighbor’s light, then maybe a log on fire.

It turned out to be a human body burning — and now authorities are treating the case as a homicide.

“It looked just like a log. Like a 4-foot log laying there. And I thought, huh, that’s kind of strange,” said Elizabeth Stuard, who made the discovery on Sunday.

The body was found in Adams, near the Kentucky line. It was taken to a medical examiner in Nashville for identification.

“It’s certainly tragic,” Ryan Martin, a spokesman for the Robertson County sheriff, told NBC affiliate WSMV.

— Erin McClam