Police: Workers find dead body in north Phoenix wash

PHOENIX - Police say a dead body has been found in northwest Phoenix near 45th Avenue and Behrend Drive.

They say the body appears to be that of an adult male, but it's in such an advanced state of decomposition that a cause of death will have to be determined by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner.

Police say officers responded to a call of a body in the wash area as workers were conducting a cleanup operation around 9:30 a.m. Monday.

Detectives from the department's homicide unit responded to the scene and recovered the body. 

FOX 10 spoke with people who live near the wash, and some say they have seen all kinds of activity, at all times of the night. To them, finding a body in the wash was not surprising.

"It's not a bad neighborhood, but this wash. It's getting a little disturbing," said Reuben Wallace.

For Wallace, the wash has been a source of frustration for almost four years.

"I've had to run a guy off that was doing a drug deal out here with some people," said Wallace.

"I'm pretty proactive out," said David Rodriguez. "Coming here, asking what people are doing on the side of my house."

Rodriguez, however, has been trying to get troublemakers to scatter off his North Valley street for years.

"They'll sit in their cars and smoke a little bit, or do whatever they're doing. I can't really tell cause everyone has tinted windows. They'll go inside there and I won't see 'em for an hour," said Rodriguez.

"They like to pull up to the cul-de-sac right there, and they sit there in their car and people come out of the wash here, said Wallace.

"We know they're not doing, you know, church studies or bible studies or anything like that," said Rodriguez.

Police say their investigation is ongoing. If you have any information about this case, call Silent Witness at (480) WITNESS.

The Associated Press (AP) contributed to this report.