A reported corpse in the bushes of an English neighborhood was a discarded sex doll, according to the Peterborough Telegraph, ending a brief panic in the Orton Wistow area on May 21.
A local councillor woke to 12 messages, four blurry photos and questions about whether the find was "council related," the paper reported. Town officials inspected the bushes next to Napier Place, an independent living scheme on land owned by housing association Accent Nene, and removed the doll without further troubling the police. "Not a murder mystery… just someone abandoning an inflatable girlfriend in a bush next to an abandoned carpet and a pothole," a statement provided to the paper said.
Officials did not describe the doll's brand, model or material. The phrase "inflatable girlfriend" appears in coverage, which perhaps suggests a cheap blow-up model rather than a fancy silicone or TPE one, which can cost thousands of dollars and may appear alarmingly realistic when posed or discarded outdoors.
It's not the first time a sex doll has been mistaken for a murder victim, though. In September 2018, police in Colerain Township, Ohio, were called to a nature reserve over a body spotted at the roadside. Officers summoned the coroner, who realized on approach that the body was a sex doll. Similar scares have been reported in Hong Kong and on China's mainland.
But it's not really about the dolls, it's about our cavalier attitudes toward littering and perhaps our embarassment too. Fear not: in the U.S. and U.K. alike, collection services are happy to discreetely dispose of your inflatable indiscretions.
