LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) — The maintenance staff of a Lexington apartment complex, off Cambridge Drive, discovered a foot that belonged to the body found by a dumpster Thursday evening. The discovery of the foot happened Friday, after the coroner had already taken the body away.

The Lexington community is in shock after learning a dead body wrapped in plastic was discovered next to a dumpster.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said there is no apparent cause of death for the body they found.

The body was discovered Thursday night at around 9:30 p.m., but the property manager of the Stone Bridge Apartments, Barbie Durrum, said investigators told her the body had been decomposed for months.

“We arrived and found decomposed, partially skeletonized human remains that were entwined in plastic, and these remains had been taken or dropped off at a dumpster in the parking lot,” Ginn said.

Durrum said a black plastic tarp mysteriously showed up on the property weeks ago.

“So somebody had put it there, I think more recently, the last couple of weeks, and I don’t know where it came from,” Durrum said.

Residents said they noticed it, thinking someone just dumped their trash there, but when one maintenance worker went to clean the trash up, they noticed something was off.

“He actually called my boss and said it’s got an odor to it, I don’t know what it is, but I can’t lift it up. I need help,” Durrum said.

Durrum said with the heavy rain pour Thursday, the maintenance worker was only able to place the black tarp next to the dumpster, but it was a dumpster diver who found the body.

“We have a lot of people who will dig in our trash, look for different things, in this area it’s common,” Durrum said.

Investigators told Durrum the body was so decomposed, they couldn’t tell if it was a male or female.

And then, maintenance workers made a gruesome discovery after the body was taken to the coroner’s office.

Ginn said, “I went back there, in an area behind the apartment complex, we did find bones and tissue, of this individual’s foot. That tells us the remains had been in one area and then transferred to another area.”

Durrum said she’s now nervous, wondering why their property of all places was targeted for this tragedy.

“I’ve been here for three years and never ever, have I ever had anything like this happen; They could have put that body anywhere. Any home, any place. There’s a park right across the street, I was thinking, ‘Why us., why here?,” Durrum said.

Ginn said he’s going to be taking the body to the state medical examiner’s office in Louisville himself. He said he’d like to witness the exam and find out more about what the cause of death might be.

“Now what will happen is after the external examination, with the state medical examiners, we will make a decision if the autopsy will happen or whether we will be transporting the remains to the University of Tennessee, or a forensic anthropologist to review and try to determine the cause of death. And of course, University of Tennessee is where the Criminal Justice Division of the Commonwealth Kentucky has a contract with the Forensic Anthropology Department,” Ginn said.