Friday, April 17th 2015, 6:55 pm
We're learning more about a body found in a sport utility vehicle in the Walmart parking lot at 66th and Memorial in Tulsa.
Walmart says store employees called police several times about a suspicious SUV. Police said they checked the license plates and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
Walmart also says it has an associate who owned a similar car.
Police tell us the man's body was decomposing in this parking lot near one of Tulsa's busiest shopping districts for more than a month.
Customers come in and out of that Walmart store 24 hours a day. The parking lot at the front of the store near 71st and Memorial always is busy.
The body was found on Thursday when someone reported an odor in a side lot and police found a man dead inside the SUV. Police looked at the store's surveillance video to see how long it'd been parked there.
“It's been there for at least a month," TPD Sgt. Dave Walker said.
Walmart said associates called police to check the suspicious vehicle a couple of times. They ran the tag, but police didn't find anything out of place.
The body of a man in his 40s was found on a mattress in the back of the vehicle. Police believe he was a transient and lived all across the country.
Walmart said the vehicle was parked where most associates leave their cars, and nobody noticed anything suspicious.
4/16/2015 Related Story: Body In Walmart Parking Lot For Over A Month, Tulsa Police Say
"It was a car that was very similar to a co-workers car,” Walmart spokesperson Aaron Mullins said. “So it certainly could've belonged to a coworker."
Shoppers can't believe it would take a month to find someone dead inside a car, especially in such a high-traffic area.
"That's scary, that's really scary," shopper Chris Bowers said. “…it doesn't deter me; it does scare me, though."
Police said the identity of the body hasn't been released because they still are working to find family members.
Again, investigators believe the man died of natural causes, but a final determination will be made by the medical examiner's office.
April 17th, 2015
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