Severed human head discovered on popular beach

A severed human head has been discovered on a US beach, with police launching an urgent investigation.

A severed human head has been discovered on a popular US beach.

Florida officials launched an investigation after the head was found by horrified beachgoers on Key Biscayne beach, just south of Miami Beach, Tuesday morning.

The Miami-Dade Police Department arrived at the beach around 8.40am after receiving multiple reports about a human head on the sand, the New York Postreports.

The sight shocked onlookers at the popular beach. Picture: NBC

The head was originally found by a worker raking the beach, police said.

It’s unclear if the head belonged to a man or woman, and police are working with the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the person’s identity.

A spokesman for the Miami-Dade police said that it is too early to tell if the decapitation is connected to any recent cases in the area, including one concerning a teenager who went missing just off the coast of Miami Beach on Saturday.

The grisly find rocked the residents of the barrier island.

Police set up a blue tarp and orange traffic cones around the recovered head. Picture: NBC

“We have seen all things here but nothing like what was found this morning, the head of a person. It makes us scared to go to the beach that we love,” Bahman Amini, who has lived in a nearby condominium building for 40 years, told CBS News Miami.

“This is shocking, shocking. You don’t hear a lot about that. You heard about drugs washing up on shore and things like that, but a head!” Miami resident Marcelo Borrelli told the outlet.

Tourists visiting Florida were also left shaken and worried.

Aerial view of an empty Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Florida. Picture: Getty

“That’s pretty scary and crazy. I have never heard of anything like this happening before on this kind of beach,” Alex Portuondo, a Denver tourist who used to live in South Florida, told CBS News Miami.

“I guess I am curious if they have any information on where it came from, if anything else has been found, if it happened here on the island or washed up on the shore. I guess I assume it might have happened someplace else and washed up here but I do worry because of this.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and has been republished here with permission.

Originally published as Severed human head discovered on popular beach