A few months ago, I heard news reports that a steel drum was found in a swamp or drained lake, and a body was inside.
There was suspicions that the body was that of a newscaster who went missing ten years earlier.
Trying to Google the story, all I get are urban myths of a body in a cask of brandy or somesuch.
Any updates?
Googling “dead body steel drum found” turned up a few such cases, but none as recent as you seem to suggest:
A San Diego woman whose body was found in a steel drum in 2002
A body found in a steel drum in a ravine in Marlboro, NJ, also in 2002
A body found in a steel drum buried under a house on Long Island in 1999
All very grisly, but none apparently the incident you were thinking of.
Not all the stories are myths. When Admiral Nelson was killed at Trafalgar, his body was placed in a cask of either rum or brandy (I forget which) and shipped home to England. The sailors who removed the body from the cask and placed it in a coffin are said to have drunk the rum/brandy.
One of Queen Victoria’s sons-in-law, Prince Henry of Battenberg, died of disease in Africa while on a military campaign and was likewise shipped back to England in a barrel of booze.
My dad or my husband…I forget which…recounted a story about someone who was cut into pieces, stuck in a barrel, and floated down the Chicago River a looong time ago.
If you know the name of the missing newscaster than you might try the websleuths boards. They have an entire forum dedicated to missing people.
Warning though, the founder of that forum believes that Patsy Ramsey killed Jonbonet. Do not bother arguing the point. It is still a decent source of information for various missing persons cases, and they also have news and updates on various crimes. (With a lot of editorial comment that would get a person “Modslapped” here.)