Body of missing man found in dinosaur statue in Spain

The body of a 39-year-old man has been discovered inside a dinosaur statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona.

On Saturday, the authorities were called when a father and son made the grim discovery, picking up on a smell coming from the statue made from papier-mâché.

When investigating where the smell was coming from, the father saw the body through a crack in the Stegosaurus’ hollow leg.

The body couldn’t be accessed as it was stuck inside the statue, and so three fire brigade teams were called in order to cut open the dinosaur leg to retrieve it.

The man - who has not been named - had been reported missing by his family, and no foul play is suspected, police have said.

After attempting to get a mobile phone he dropped inside the statue, the man seems to have fell down himself, and got trapped in the statue, unable to call for help, according to local media reports.

A spokeswoman for the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, said: “It looks like he entered the statue head first and couldn’t get out.”

Though, police are still awaiting results from the man’s autopsy to officially confirmed his cause of death.

The spokeswoman added: “We’re still waiting for the autopsy results, so we don’t know how long he was in there, but it seems he was there for a couple of days,”

Since the discovery, the statue has been removed from outside the building where it stood.