A cou­ple who were hik­ing along La Or­ange Trace, Heights of Aripo, Ari­ma, were shocked and fright­ened on Sun­day af­ter­noon, af­ter they stum­bled up­on a bloody corpse on the trail.

The cou­ple and their dog were walk­ing along around 4.45 pm, when they came up­on the bloody corpse, which had been dumped in the forest­ed area.

The cou­ple fled and lat­er alert­ed po­lice to the dis­cov­ery. Of­fi­cers ar­rived to find the body of a man of African de­scent and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30-years-old, ly­ing on its back.

The body was clad in a white vest, three-quar­ter jeans pants, dark coloured un­der­wear, and had on one black and white slip­per on the left foot. The vic­tim, who bore tat­toos on both an­kles and on the length of his right arm, was shot in the head.

One 9mm spent shell was found a few feet away from the body.

—An­na-Lisa Paul