I’m willing to bet that April Fool’s Day pranks do more harm than humor. Pranks are such a common occurrence, dead bodies are getting tossed in dumpsters because people think the world is one big gag.
Ronald Benjamin, saw what looked to him like a mannequin while taking a smoke break behind the housing complex where he works as a clerk. He thought it was an April Fools’ Day joke and went back to work. Hours later, another employee of the senior complex told Benjamin about the “mannequin” on the patio and Benjamin explained it was just a prank.
A woman and her teen son stopped by to deliver newspapers and Benjamin asked the kid to help him move the mannequin into a dumpster. They heaved the body into the trash.
Workers at the complex finally realized that the mannequin in the dumpster was not a mannequin but a 96-year-old resident who had jumped sixteen stories to her death during the night.
Benjamin was stunned when he was told that it was a person.
“I’m telling you, I swear to God, the face looked like a rubber mask,” he said as he sat on his couch stroking his aging Yorkshire terrier on his lap. “If I thought for one instant it was a real person I would have called the police, my manager, everyone I could think of.”
No criminal charges will be filed against Benjamin but he might be required to get some new glasses.
Housing complex clerk mistakes dead woman for April Fools’ mannequin [Tampa Bay Times]