BPD opens homicide investigation into death of man whose body was found in a shopping cart left sitting in Bay Village in August

Stanley Staco recently broke the public silence on the death of Justin Arthur Davidson, whose body Boston Public Works employees found at the Frontage Road yard while emptying a blue bin in a Whole Foods shopping cart somebody had complained about to 311 on Winchester Street in Bay Village on the morning of Aug. 7.

The initial, grisly story (first reports had the workers finding just an arm, in fact, there was an entire body in the cart), quickly faded - the death was not included in the BPD's tally of murders in 2023 and the department never publicly identified the name of the person whose body was found, as it typically does with murder cases.

Staco, though, learned you can get a copy of somebody's death certificate for somebody who died in Boston through the city's vital-records department and after going through several possibilities from Aug. 7, discovered the body had been identified as Davidson, 36, a Rockland resident who was born in Boston.

Under "Manner of Death," the certificate says: "COULD NOT BE DETERMINED." His place of death was listed as Frontage Road - the Public Works yard - rather than Winchester Street.

Staco then filed a public-records request with BPD for any information on Davidson's death, but his request was denied in April because the records "relate to an active and ongoing homicide investigation."

Justin Arthur Davidson, 36, leaves a daughter, his father, six brothers and sisters and three nephews and a niece, according to his obituary, which adds: "He will be greatly missed and will always be Uncle Bobo" to his nephews and niece.