"I just sort of froze, and felt sick," she told Radio New Zealand. "I could see it was definitely the shape of a torso, face down, and I could tell it was a woman's figure. I could see it had fingernails and the toes were really realistic, so it really looked like a human figure."
Cowdrey called police and three officers responded.
"And then I sort of saw one of the cops nudge it with his foot, and I thought, he's not going to nudge it if it's a body," Cowdrey said.
She said the identity of the object became clear once it was flipped over.
"You could tell it was a sex doll," she said.
She said the dummy was so heavy that it required all three officers to drag it back to a patrol vehicle.
Police in Malaysia responded to a similar situation in 2022, when a reported body found behind a motorcycle shop turned out to be a discarded mannequin. Other incidents involving mannequins and sex dolls have been reported in California, Ohio and the Netherlands.
