A 38-year-old man who was found deceased outside a Burlington Coat Factory in Huntington Beach had been reporting missing from another Orange County city, police said Tuesday afternoon.
A Costco employee saw the unresponsive man from the fifth floor of the Bella Terra shopping center’s parking structure around 3:50 a.m., according to the Huntington Beach Police Department.
Police and paramedics responded and located the man outside the store’s loading dock, officials said in a post on the Police Department’s Facebook page.
He was pronounced deceased at the scene. The unidentified man’s death was being investigated as “suspicious,” according to the post.
Police initially believed he was in his late 20s or early 30s, and was not a transient.
His identity is known, but authorities were not releasing it yet. He was described only as a 38-year-old Asian man.
The man had been reported missing from another Orange County city, according to police. They declined to specify which one.
Huntington Beach police Officer Jennifer Marlatt described the discovery as “very odd” for the area.
“We do not find deceased people around here. If we were to find somebody it would most likely be a homeless person, but even for the area where he was found that would still be extremely odd,” she said.
The store is located at 7777 Edinger Ave., in the Bella Terra shopping center. The expansive property also features a Costco, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Cost Plus World Market and a Barnes & Noble.
Several areas east of the Costco gas pumps were taped off as detectives continued an investigation into the man’s death, police said.
It was not immediately known how he died; a cause of death would be determined at a later time.