Cops find mummy in N.Y. basement

NEW YORK, April 28 (UPI) -- Police using sledgehammers broke into a Staten Island, N.Y., basement and found the mummified remains of a body, witnesses said.

Officers knocked down a door leading to the boarded-up basement of a two-story apartment building Monday and emerged with an unidentified corpse, the New York Daily News reported.

Neighbors said police had acted on a tip.

"It's been sealed off for two years," resident Francheska Rivera, 23, told the Daily News. "There's a whole bunch of garbage down there, a whole bunch of rats and mice."

The building owner reportedly spoke to police in an attempt to discover how the corpse ended up in his basement.