In a bizarre turn of events, what seemed like a tragic discovery on a New Zealand beach turned out to be nothing more than a hyper-realistic doll.
Alice Cowdrey was out for a walk with her dog, Sadie, along Tapuae Beach, just south of New Plymouth in the Taranaki region, when Sadie stumbled upon something unusual in the sand. Initially, Cowdrey was horrified, believing she had found a headless woman’s body.
“I just sort of froze and felt sick,” she recounted to Radio New Zealand. “It was definitely the shape of a torso, face down, and it had all the details of a woman’s figure, right down to the fingernails and realistic toes.”
Shaken by the discovery, Cowdrey promptly contacted the police. Three officers arrived at the scene to investigate the grim find. However, their cautious approach quickly turned curious when one of the officers nudged the body with his foot. It was then that the true nature of the “corpse” was revealed—it was a life-sized adult toy.
“You could tell it was a sex doll,” Cowdrey explained, adding that the doll was so heavy it took all three officers to haul it to their patrol vehicle.
This isn’t the first time such a misunderstanding has occurred. In 2022, police in Malaysia responded to a report of a body behind a motorcycle shop, only to find a discarded mannequin. Similar incidents have been reported in California, Ohio, and the Netherlands, proving that realistic dolls can easily fool even the most observant passersby.
