A headless sex doll inexplicably found on Tapuae Beach, Taranaki Photo: Alice Cowdrey / Supplied
A Taranaki woman called police after discovering what she thought was a headless body on a beach, which turned out to be a "very realistic" sex doll.
Alice Cowdrey was walking her dog Sadie at Tapuae Beach, south of New Plymouth, on Tuesday. She was already feeling on edge that morning after coming across two dead goats on the beach just a few days prior.
"I'd sort of been thinking about how odd that was, and how it made me feel a little bit uneasy. I had... when I first got out of the car, been thinking about bodies, which is totally bizarre."
Cowdrey noticed Sadie sniffing around a form on the beach, and walked closer to see what it was.
"I just sort of froze, and felt sick," she said.
"I could see it was definitely the shape of a torso, face down, and I could tell it was a woman's figure. I could see it had fingernails and the toes were really realistic, so it really looked like a human figure."
Sadie did not seem overly concerned - but Cowdrey was "freaking out" after realising it had no head, so she ran down the beach to get reception and dialled 111.
A headless sex doll inexplicably found on Tapuae Beach, Taranaki. Photo: Alice Cowdrey / supplied
As she waited for police to arrive, she began worrying there could be "a murderer on the loose".
The three officers who responded were also convinced it was real when they first saw it, she said.
"And then I sort of saw one of the cops nudge it with his foot, and I thought, he's not going to nudge it if it's a body.
"And then he sort of flipped it over, and it was even more realistic when it was on its back, it had everything... it was very realistic... but obviously you could tell it was a sex doll."
Cowdrey said she was relieved, but felt bad she had called police about a sex doll, although they reassured her she had done the right thing.
It took all three officers to drag it back down the beach to their car, such was its weight, she said.
As for how a headless sex doll came to be lying on a quiet Taranaki beach, Cowdrey said she had more questions than answers.
Some online research showed a doll like that was worth thousands of dollars, she said.
"It's quite a major investment for somebody... it could have been stolen, somebody's not just going to chuck it on the beach and leave it there."
The police declined to comment, saying they were prioritising "urgent incidents".