At around 9 a.m. this morning, a tourist walking along the waterfront with his niece found a suitcase holding a dead body. Margarito Real told KTVU, "There was a suitcase floating in the water; my niece saw it first ... We looked at it for a few minutes and then started walking…We told one of the people who was working at the pier that there was a suitcase floating in the water… It just looked suspicious to me."

Real then ran to a nearby fire station to report the mysterious suitcase. Then? Things took a turn to the macabre. Real goes on to explain:

"He (a firefighter) tried to pull it, but it was heavy .. He opened it and I think I saw a leg… It made my skin crawl. They told me to take my niece away…It was a horrible feeling….Fortunately, my niece did not see anything."

The mangled corpse was left in the suitcase as it was transferred to the medical examiner’s office. We'll update as soon as we know more about the victim’s possible age or gender.

UPDATE: The Chronicle reports: "The unidentified woman was white or a light-skinned Latina and appeared to be in her 30s." The suitcase was found near Folsom and Embarcadero, just across the street from Gap headquarters. Police are treating this case as a homicide, of course.