Sheriff’s deputies were forced to respond to the discovery of a creepy teddy bear that looked like it was made of bloody human tissue before it was found to be harmless, Southern California authorities said Monday.
The macabre scene unfolded in Victorville, about 85 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, at a bus stop next to a gas station on Bear Valley Road, officials said.
A “doll that was possibly made of human skin” was found a little bit after noon on Sunday, according to a coroner’s statement.
A deputy coroner investigator “determined this doll was made of a fabricated material and was not of human origin” before a forensic pathologist also “confirmed that the object was not human and contained no human tissue,” the statement said.
“Our investigation found these dolls being sold on a website with the claim that the dolls are ‘made of human skin,’” the coroner said.
A South Carolina artist identified the scary toy as one of his creations.
Robert Kelly of Dark Seed Creations said he made that bear and sold it via the e-commerce platform Etsy to a buyer in Victorville.
Kelly said he was not “involved in a prank on the other side of the nation from me.”
San Bernardino County authorities said the investigation is ongoing.
NBC Los Angeles and Janhvi Bhojwani contributed.
