I am not at the point of having a teen in the house yet, but as the anxious worrier I am, I think about it often. I worry about what wild situations my son may get into, what choices he’ll make, and what the world will thrust onto him. Something that is not on my mom-of-a-teen bingo card, though, is him making a gruesome discovery out in the world. Shockingly, a group of teens youthfully playing in the snow in Massachusetts had to add it to their cards after a chance encounter.
On March 4, 2026, a group of teens was playing in the snow in Shirley near a bridge over Phoenix Pond and spotted what appeared to be a body part floating in the river, according to Law & Crime. The Shirley Police Department confirmed the discovery the same day with a post updating the community on the grotesque find.
Authorities were able to confirm that the teens found a limb. A fellow resident Katy March was walking by the group with her dog and confirmed to Boston 25 News that she heard the teens talking about the discovery.
“They were dry heaving into the snow bank saying ‘that’s so messed up, that’s so messed up,’” Marsh said.
It was a genuinely jarring experience for all of them. “I definitely didn’t like that,” one of the first teens to spot the appendage, Dominic Dunn, 15, told CBS Boston. “I didn’t like finding a leg with younger siblings here. Especially from having a snowball fight with my little sister, that was messed up.”
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan held a news conference the following day sharing an update. Authorities were able to identify the victim: convicted felon 69-year-old Peter Degan of Rockland, Massachusetts, who was released from prison last month. He had completed his sentence after he pleaded guilty to money laundering and cocaine trafficking in 2019. He was reportedly seen just a week prior on February 27.
“Those parts appear to have been clean cut, that is they were severed with a sharp force instrument,” Ryan said during the news conference, noting that all of the discovered body parts belonged to the same person but not all of them had been found yet. “We do not believe this to have been random.”
Thus far, the investigation is still open and authorities are urging anyone with information to come forward by calling 978-425-2642.
