Man arrested in Kern County after reportedly picking up and chewing severed human leg

A California man who was reportedly seen biting and chewing a severed human leg in Kern County has been arrested for allegedly taking the remains from the site of a fatal train collision.

Construction workers spotted the man while laying concrete near an Amtrak station in Wasco.

“He was waving a person’s leg. ... He was biting it, and he was hitting it against the wall,” Jose Ibarra, a worker who witnessed the scene, said in a video posted on CNN.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office arrested 27-year-old Rosendo Tellez on Friday for the “removal of human remains from other than a cemetery,” arrest records show. He was also booked for possession of controlled substance paraphernalia and felony violation of probation.

The Kern County Fire Department told KTLA that emergency crews had responded to a train crash Friday morning near 7th and G streets in Wasco, where an unidentified person was pronounced dead. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Tuesday that deputies assisted railroad police in the case of a pedestrian struck by a train that day.

Tellez removed evidence from the scene of the collision, the sheriff’s office said. He was arrested without incident near 7th and F streets around 8:30 a.m., according to arrest records. He is being held at the Lerdo Pre-Trial Facility.