Minnesota Elementary School Students Find Dead Body in Woods, Teachers Tell Them It's a Halloween Decoration

Teachers at a Minnesota elementary school told students that a dead body they discovered in the woods was a Halloween decoration.

Lowell Elementary School told parents about the incident in an automated message on Friday morning, according to Duluth News Tribune, which also reported that the school called police to the scene.

Students and teachers found the body while in woods near the school in Duluth, Minnesota. The Duluth Police Department told media that early indications suggested the unidentified person found in the woods took their own life, but said an investigation was active.

The school's message to parents said teachers "immediately took the students back to school," The Post Bulletin reported, adding that parents were invited to a meeting at the school on Friday. Mental health support is also being offered to teachers and students who stumbled upon the body.

The Duluth News Tribune reported that local police chief Mike Tusken confirmed a teacher had told students that the dead body was a Halloween decoration.

Social workers are being made available to Lowell Elementary School pupils throughout this week.

The discovery of the body in the woods near the Duluth school comes weeks after the New York Police Department (NYPD) launched an investigation following the discovery of a body rolled up in a red carpet and dumped on a sidewalk.

A pedestrian called police when he spotted the red carpet with feet poking out on 145th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. Authorities said a shopping cart found near the body might have been used to push it up the street.

The Associated Press was told that culprits put the body on the street a few hours before it was discovered, with the New York Post also publishing a surveillance video of what appeared to be two men pushing a rolled up piece of carpet along the street in a cart.

One witness to the discovery of the carpet, Christopher Brown, told ABC7: "I was on my way to school and was coming up the block and saw all the cops and ambulances.

"It was crazy. I know the Starbucks workers were all standing there in shock."

The NYPD did not identify the body found in the red carpet outside a branch of coffee chain Starbucks, but did say the incident was being treated as a homicide.

If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours every day.