The doorman of a building in the city of St. Petersburg, in Florida's east coast, was fired after confusing the body of a 96-year-old neighbor with a mannequin, local media reported.
The shocking incident happened at a retirement home in Florida, when 61-year-old Ronald Benjamin mistakenly dumped the woman's body into a garbage dump.
According to the Miami Herald, the man told the authorities that the confusion happened because the woman's death happened on April 1, or "April Fool's Day", celebrated on Dec. 28 elsewhere in the world.
According to The Associated Press, quoted by ABC, Florida police established that the woman, identified as Nancy Yates, jumped from the balcony of her department on the 16th floor, and authorities believe it was a suicide.
The body of the woman fell at the parking lot, where Benjamin found it in the early morning of Wednesday.
On the morning, the man asked for help from a newspaper vendor and her son to dump the body in the container, without noticing it was a real person.
This mistake cost the man his job as the building's doorman, although no charges were raised against him since the police found a note in the woman's department, which reinforces the theory that it was a suicide.
Ronald Benjamin had been working at the building for nine years.