The lower half of a man’s body was found in a bag in an alley outside a northwest suburban shopping center Friday night.

The body was found after someone called in a foul odor coming from the trash at 21 N. Dryden Place in Arlington Heights around 4:30 p.m. When police arrived, they saw a human foot sticking out of a plastic bag next to a Dumpster, and immediately sealed off the area, according to a police news release.

That address is the Marketview Apartments near Dryden Place and East Kensington Road, just east of the Arlington Market Shopping Center. Police think the body had been there at least a couple of days before it was found.

Police transported the body, still inside the plastic bag, to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, which identified the contents as the lower extremities of an adult white man. The body is separated just above the pelvis, but what kind of instrument was used to sever the body in two is still unclear.

A Saturday autopsy was inconclusive pending police investigation, according to the medical examiner’s office.

Officials are scouring through missing person reports as they work to identify the remains. Arlington Heights police and Major Case Assistant Team are investigating.