VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A man's body washed up on Chic's Beach early Thursday morning, Virginia Beach police said in a tweet.
Police said the body was found near the surf in the 4400 block of Mortons Road.
Public Information Officer Tonya Pierce told 13News Now they got a call to the area when someone found the body around 6:40 a.m. Investigators and forensic teams spent hours on the scene.
They even knocked on neighbors’ doors, like Alex Kantor’s.
"There was a police officer outside and he asked if I knew anything about a dead body outside. I was just in total shock," said Kantor.
Kantor said he’s lived at Chic's Beach on and off for years, but he’s never seen anything like this before.
“It’s crazy that can happen right in our back yard, you know. Chic's Beach,” said Kantor.
Randy Colthorpe told us he's lived in Chic's Beach for decades. He takes his usual walk along the water with his metal detector, three days a week, but this morning, he found more than he wanted to find.
“I noticed a group of people (police) obviously congregated on the beach. I was hoping it was something to do with marine life, but unfortunately, it was a body," he said.
Colthorpe said that even though he's seen bodies on the beach before, “it’s sad, sad for whomever it is. It’s terrible."
The man’s body is now in the hands of the medical examiner, who will determine the cause of death.