DETROIT, MI -- About 7:40 p.m. Sunday, police discovered the body of a man who had died a "long" time ago near the zoo abandoned in 2002 on Detroit's Belle Isle.

The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy Monday but was unable to determine the man's identity or cause and manner of death.

"He is believed to be a black make, about 50 years of age," said Mary Mazur, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's Office. "His body was essentially mummified. However, the Michigan State Police is working with the medical examiner ... to obtain fingerprints from his hand which could be used to identify him.

"There was some challenge because of the dryness of the skin but we may be able to pull prints ... If not, we’ll go ahead and use whatever dental records might be available or even DNA."

Mazur said it's believed the man's body remained under a snow drift in an area that was "cold and dry," leading to "natural mummification."

This is a similar phenomena that occurred in the death of Pia Farrenkopf, a Pontiac woman believed to have died in early-2009 and remained in the back seat her Jeep inside her garage before being found in March. Her body, too, was described as being mummified.



State police say it doesn't appear foul play is to blame for the man's death on Belle Isle.

According to National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database, the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office has greater than 200 recordings of human remains tracking back to the 1960s that remains unidentified.