Police are trying to find the origin of a skull that a Florida homeless man brought to a grocery store Tuesday in Indian River County, a small coastal region that sits between Daytona Beach and Boca Raton.

"He was using it as a puppet," said witness Nick Pecoraro, according to Fox News. "It smelled like death."

"It's definitely a human skull; it's still got teeth in it," Pecoraro told the 911 dispatcher. "I'm standing in front of it, but I'm not touching [it]."

"He had put the skull on top of a trash can over there because he wanted to tell somebody to call the sheriff's office," said Indian River County Sheriff's Office Spokesman Thomas Raulen, explaining the homeless man's handling of the skull.

The skull was found in an area where homeless people frequent, but not in any of the homeless camps in the area. The advanced decomposition of the skull showed it had been in the area quite a long time, according to the Inquisitr. Gender, race, age and cause of death are unknown at this time.

Deputies with the Indian River County Sheriff's Department investigated the area where the homeless man claimed to have found the skull, which was an area about 200 feet off of the road, according to USA Today. The bones were "slightly scattered, in a manner consistent with animal disruption," said police officials.

The remains have been taken to the medical examiner's office for further investigation into the cause of death.