When the body of the man with the tattoo of the Virgin Mary spread across his back was found on the shore in Brooklyn, his face was wrapped in duct tape and his feet were encased in concrete, the police said.

“This individual was wrapped in black plastic bags and his arms were tied behind him,” Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, said at a news conference in Queens on Tuesday. “His feet were submerged in poured concrete, obviously a homicide.”

The unidentified man’s body was found around 10:30 a.m. on Monday by a student at Kingsborough Community College who was walking on the campus shoreline along Sheepshead Bay, the police said. The student notified a nearby Fire Department marine unit, which alerted the police, Chief Boyce said.

The medical examiner will determine how the man died and how long he had been in the water.

Chief Boyce said the police would release a sketch of the man and his tattoo of the Virgin Mary holding a rose.