FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ When Lilian Argueta opened a used upright freezer at her scrap business and saw a woman's body inside, she was so frightened she began to scream.
"It thought it was a witch, or a mannequin," said Argueta, who runs the business in Margate with her husband, Pedro Rodriguez. "I thought, 'It can't be a person.' But there was a bad odor."
Argueta, 55, began to cry as she described in Spanish how she found Heather Anne Lacey's body in the freezer one night in March, at their warehouse bay on Northwest Eighth Street.
Argueta's anguish brought neighboring business owners and workers to her side, including mechanic Steven Calcano.
"I just heard the commotion and everyone screaming," Calcano said. "I took a glance at (the body) and said, 'Oh my God,' and walked away."
Lacey was 35 when she disappeared almost six years ago. The discovery of her body is just part of a case that spans Broward County. Hollywood Police and the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office are working to solve it.
Argueta and Calcano were shocked to know that Lacey was a pale blonde when she was alive, and said the body they saw was shrunken, with skin darkened like a mummy would have.
Inside the disrespectful coffin, Lacey's face was turned to one side and her arms were raised as if her hands were pushing against the door of the freezer that stood about 5 feet high. Her legs were compressed toward her upper body in the small space, they said.
Though they are trying to forget, the witnesses said they still ponder the life of the woman inside the freezer.
"Every once in a while I think, 'Why would this happen, and how would it happen?'" Calcano said.
Said Argueta, "I feel bad. She was a woman, and something bad happened to her."
