Tragic Death of 12-Year-Old Boy Found in Philadelphia Dumpster Ruled a Homicide, Police Investigating

Local author­i­ties are active­ly inves­ti­gat­ing after iden­ti­fy­ing the shock­ing remains of a child found dis­card­ed in a Philadel­phia dump­ster as 12-year-old Hezeki­ah Bernard.

Police believe his cause of death to be homi­cide after an autop­sy revealed the boy had been fatal­ly shot in the head.

San­i­ta­tion work­ers made the gris­ly dis­cov­ery last week when unpack­ing trash col­lect­ed near 55th and Cher­ry Streets. Hezeki­ah’s plas­tic-wrapped body and blan­ket-cov­ered remains indi­cat­ed foul play. Though not report­ed miss­ing, fam­i­ly mem­bers were able to iden­ti­fy him through dis­trib­uted fliers days later.

At a press brief­ing, Homi­cide Unit Inspec­tor Ernest Ran­som described the bru­tal­i­ty of Hezeki­ah being “sense­less­ly killed and placed in a trash can.” With no obvi­ous motive sur­faced and unknown per­pe­tra­tors, police are pur­su­ing leads hop­ing to appre­hend those involved.

The local com­mu­ni­ty has unit­ed in mourn­ing the loss of the young life. A bal­loon release trib­ute was held by anti-vio­lence orga­ni­za­tion Lev­el Up, where pas­tor and direc­tor Aaron Camp­bell said they gath­ered “to hon­or Hezeki­ah” and show “the pow­er of our youth.” Fel­low teen Jyshair Mont­gomery fond­ly remarked “he’s gone but he ain’t nev­er going to be forgotten.”

As the inves­ti­ga­tion enters its active phase, author­i­ties encour­age any with infor­ma­tion on this dis­turb­ing case to come for­ward. Find­ing jus­tice for Hezeki­ah remains the utmost pri­or­i­ty as police work dili­gent­ly to solve this tragedy and help ease the pain of a griev­ing family.