It Takes a Lot to Shock People This Time of Year

With bloody Halloween displays everywhere you look, I guess it's not terribly surprising that neighbors mistook a dead guy for some holiday decoration:

Residents of a Southern California apartment complex say they saw a lifeless body slumped on a neighbor's patio, but didn't call police because they thought it was part of a Halloween display.

Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed had apparently been dead since Monday.

Cameraman Austin Raishbrook, owner of RMG News, told the Los Angeles Times he was at the scene in Marina del Rey Thursday when authorities arrived. The 75-year-old Zayed was slumped over a chair on the third-floor balcony of his apartment with a single gunshot wound to the eye.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigator says the case is an "apparent suicide."

Raishbrook says neighbors told him they noticed the body Monday "but didn't bother calling authorities because it looked like a Halloween dummy."

In some communities the guy might have won an award for "Scariest Halloween Decoration".