A burned body was discovered Monday night behind a San Bernardino home, leading to a police investigation that continued hours later in the residential neighborhood.
Details about a cause of death were not available.
Police say that they were called to the neighborhood, located just off Highland Avenue and near the 210 Freeway, when they found the body in a dirt lot near the corner of Duffy and Donald streets.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
“The police jumped my fence to knock on the door,” Kenny Partida, whose home the body was found behind, said. “He said, ‘Did you see something here?’ No, I don’t know anything.”
There are signs that a fire took place on the site. Detectives have since placed bright green evidence markers around the body, in addition to a trail of more markers leading out to the neighborhood as residents grow increasingly worried.
“It’s scary,” George Flores, a neighbor of Partida, said. “That could have been anybody. Like, who did it?”
Fire personnel also responded to the scene, saying that they believe that the body is that of a man, but details about his identity were not immediately available.
Detectives are still working to piece together other details, including who the man was, how long the body could have been there, and what the original call to police was about.
In addition, detectives say that they will be canvassing the area in order to track down any possible video evidence captured from home security cameras.