A scrap business owner opened a freezer that had come into her shop and found a woman's body folded over inside.

“It thought it was a witch, or a mannequin," said Lilian Argueta, from Margate, Florida. "I thought, ‘It can’t be a person," she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, but the odour was unmistakable.

It turned out the body belonged to Heather Anne Lacey, a woman who had disappeared nearly six years ago.

Police say that the body would likely never have been discovered had it not been for another death months earlier.

In February, the decomposing body of Jonathan Escarzaga, a 36-year-old aeroplane mechanic, was discovered in Hollywood, Florida after neighbours tipped off the police after noticing a foul odour.

Escarzaga's landlord ultimately hired Argueta and her husband Pedro Rodriguez's company to clean out the apartment and dispose of the appliances, including a freezer.

Another month passed before Argueta finally got around to opening the freezer and revealing it's contents. Lacey was identified by her fingerprints.

She was 30 years old and a mother of two when she disappeared after a long battle with addiction that began after a complicated pregnancy.

“She was a very smart girl and had a lot going for her and unfortunately, her downfall was getting into drugs, doing drugs and being addicted,” Patti Palumbo, Lacey’s mother, told the Sun Sentinel.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Lacey was arrested several times for drug possession and prostitution. She ultimately served a year in state prison for identity theft, before Her family's last contact with her in November 2013, just before thanksgiving.