Story highlights The ASPCA will conduct necropsies

Police are looking for the previous owner

(CNN) A man paid $150 for a storage container at a Long Island auction and made a horrific discovery: two freezers filled with 40 dead cats.

"Some were just on the top, some were inside," the man, who gave his name as Carlos, told CNN affiliate WABC

One skinned cat lay atop an aluminum tray.

American Self-Storage, the company that held the auction, immediately contacted police and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

An open investigation into this macabre mystery is underway.

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