Edgar Velarde found a human head in a plastic bag beside his house Saturday afternoon.

Velarde, 45, said he found the bag in some bushes on the far side of the fence that separates his house from the parking lot of Flanigan’s Seafood Bar & Grill at 2600 Davie Blvd.

“I thought it was a dead cat or a dog,” said Velarde, who lives in the 2600 block of 13th Street.

He said he called animal control about 4 p.m. Saturday, but someone there told him officers couldn’t come out on Saturday.

Then Velarde said he called Flanigan’s, but an employee told him the staff was having a meeting and told him to call the police. Velarde said he called Fort Lauderdale police about 6 p.m.

The officer who came to his home told him, without looking inside the bag, that it was a dead animal and to throw it in a trash bin behind Flanigan’s, Velarde said.

But Velarde discovered it wasn’t a dead animal when he pulled the bag from the bushes.

“When I pulled it out, the head rolled out of the bag,” he said. “I think it was a woman’s; it had long hair.”

Police would not say whether the head was a man’s or woman’s.

Capt. Scott Israel of the Fort Lauderdale Police Forensics Division said late Saturday night that police found no other body parts in the bag, though there were some personal items, including sunglasses and jewelry.

Israel said police would have to examine the head further to make an identification.

Police said they didn’t know whether the head came from a man’s body found Aug. 2 in a Dania lake, a few miles away. The unidentified victim in that killing had been beheaded and his hands severed before the body was dumped in a roadside rock pit in the 3500 block of Southwest 29th Avenue.

Detectives said they thought that victim had been murdered elsewhere, then dumped in the lake.

The mutilation apparently was aimed at concealing the victim’s identity, effectively keeping investigators from identifying the killer as well.

That victim was white, stocky and in his 20s. He stood between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed about 160 pounds and had dark hair.