Amy Spada stepped out her front door in Monrovia, California, on Sunday morning and, to her horror, found a corpse on the lawn.
It was enormous. It was covered with a sheet. It was cordoned off with police tape. And, perhaps strangest of all, it was a bear.
That was around 7 a.m. Police assured her the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would come get it, but by 3:30 p.m. the remains of the unfortunate animal were still lying there.
Finding the bear was “horrible, just horrible,” Spada said. But by the afternoon, the situation seemed even more dire. How long before it would start to smell, and attract flies and coyotes? Spada wondered.
The state DFW did not immediately respond to messages from The Times on Sunday afternoon.
Waiting all day Sunday for authorities to do something about the corpse was a strange postscript to what had been a long, sad night.
Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Spada noticed police milling around the condo complex where she lives near West Foothill Boulevard.
She went out to see what was going on, and officers said a bear had been hit by a car and was hiding in the bushes. The car, which had been going about 45 mph, was severely damaged, but the driver was not seriously injured, Spada said police told her.
Sad for the bear, but feeling that the police had the situation under control, Spada went back inside and then to bed.
Her husband awoke around 1:30 a.m. to a mournful sound. He stepped out on their balcony to find the bear below, “moaning and groaning and lying on the ground,” Spada said.
A neighbor said their Ring camera showed the bear at their own door before it collapsed on the lawn.
Spada’s husband called the police, but by the time they arrived, the bear was dead.
Monrovia gets its share of wildlife wandering down from the nearby foothills. Deer, coyotes and bears are all pretty common, Spada said.
The one on her lawn — although quite large — didn’t appear to be fully grown, she said. It was medium-sized, probably an adolescent.
As Spada waited for authorities to remove the bear, a lot went through her mind, including: “What happens when the mama bear comes looking for it?”