When a woman took a trip to her local Walmart in California, she didn’t realize she was traveling with an extra companion. Upon exiting Walmart to fill her trunk with groceries, she realized that there was a corpse in the way, reported CBS Los Angeles.

Upon opening her trunk, witnesses said the woman became hysterical to the point of attracting the attention of other Walmart shoppers. Part of the reason the woman was so upset was because she knew the guy — witnesses said that it was the woman’s neighbor. One witness, Robert Lugan, described her startling reaction to CBS.

“She was freaking out. They had to put her in a squad car and take her home.”

Local police reported that the woman had noticed a strange smell in her car all day, but she had never checked her trunk until leaving Walmart. Sgt. Dave Amadour said that the body could potentially have been in the car for a very short period of time before the woman’s discovery in the Walmart parking lot.

“It’s hot out so it’s hard to say how long the body had been there, it won’t take long for a body to decompose in this weather.”

Police found the body in the back of a 1999 Lexus at 4:42 p.m. Few details have emerged thus far due to the odd nature of the case, but investigators suspect that the man was dead before the woman left Ponoma where they both live. Lt. Jaybee Brennan told KTLA what the police know about the crime thus far.

“The decedent in the trunk is not someone in her family. It is someone that she knows, and that’s all that we know at this time. We’re trying to determine… where this happened.”

Just imagining the crime happening to yourself in troubling — shuffling Walmart bags out of your cart to see a face staring back at you, especially a face that you recognized. Police are equally baffled by the bizarre crime — if that’s even what it is. Sgt. Amadour remarked that the crime was exceedingly rare.

“It’s very unusual. It’s one of a kind. I mean, we do get bodies in trunks. But to open it up and say they know him. And didn’t know they were in there, that’s unusual.”

What do you think? Do you suspect foul play in the death of the Walmart parking lot corpse? Do you think the woman’s reaction takes her off the list of suspects?

[Image via Corbin]