Menasha, Wisconsin, cops discover missing prosthetic leg [UPDATED]

TagHeuer

Someone is missing their prosthetic leg

A Menasha woman called police on August 4 to report that she'd found the leg between 4:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. that day. No word yet on just how she stumbled across said leg. And the police were equally baffled as to how someone might go about losing such an important part of their anatomy.

But...thanks to the media attention, the mystery has just been solved.

"One of our residents had actually cleaned out a garage and had found it in his garage," says Aaron Zemlock, of the Menasha Police. "He had disposed of it, and he said the foot had been sticking out, and he did notice the next day that it was gone.

"He had no idea that we had recovered it until he saw the media coverage today," Zemlock explains.

The good news is that the original owner of the prosthetic limb doesn't need it anymore because he or she is dead, Zemlock told City Pages.

"Nobody's missing their limb--so that's the good news," Zemlock says.

Which is actually really good news, because the police weren't going to go looking for the leg's owner anyway. They decided to let it and its black shoe stay safely in the evidence locker, just waiting to be picked up.

These things are worth several thousand dollars, so maybe the leg could be recycled or raffled off to someone who needs one--though Zemlock said that it's an older model that may be difficult to re-furbish. He said the police are in conversation with a local prosthetic company about that possibility.

"I don't know that it will necessarily be re-used," he says. "Certainly, if it could be, we'll donate it back."