Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding a decomposing body found in an Ontario motel room and the man who apparently was living with it.

Officers’ bizarre discovery started with a concerned phone call to police Sunday morning, when someone at the Mission Motel reported a funky smell coming from one of the rooms.

When officers arrived a few minutes after 9 a.m., they knocked on the room’s door and Alfred Guerrero answered, police said.

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Officers could smell the pungent odor and noticed flies buzzing behind Guerrero, but Guerrero refused to say anything about it, police said.

“He told them they needed to look for themselves and would not provide any additional information,” Sgt. Jeff Higbee said in a statement.

Inside, police found a body that had been decomposing for “several” days, officials said.

“It’s extremely unusual,” Higbee said. “I don’t know what his thinking was, why he would not report it. That’s suspicious in itself.”


Guerrero had been living in the motel for two years and was an acquaintance of the dead man, police said. But no other details of their relationship were available.

Because it was not clear how the man died – from natural causes, a medical complication or drug overdose, among other possibilities – Guerrero was not arrested, Higbee said. Officers detained and questioned him but ultimately let him go.

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