Earlier, the victim had been identified as a former NBA player, but while police say the victim's name is Quinton Ross, 32, it is NOT the Quinton Ross who played for the New Jersey Nets among other teams.
The victim left his house Sunday morning and never returned, investigators said.
His worried mother pinged his cell phone on Monday morning and eventually found the cell phone on the boardwalk.
Ross's body was found by responding police in a bag in an overgrown area off the boardwalk at Beach 40th Street and Edgemere Avenue.
It is being investigated as a homicide.
"Oh my God why, just tell me why," said the victim's aunt, Stachia Jacobs.
For Jacobs and her family, this is the worst discovery they could have made. Deep in the beachside thicket in Edgemere, the body of their loved one.
"His girlfriend made the report but you have to wait 24 hours," said Jacobs. "24 hours! And then they decided to make their own investigation and she had to track his phone. And they tracked his phone and found his things out there."
His aunt says when they tried to locate Ross's cell phone it led them to the desolate area between the boardwalk and Edgemere Avenue near Beach 40th. The man's mother made the first grisly discovery.
"They came up here early this morning and started searching, she and my brother. They found the bag with his stuff inside with blood," said Jacobs.
Immediately calling police, the family then anxiously waited as police searched another large thicket across the road. That's where they found Ross's body inside a garbage bag.
"it's obvious that he was murdered and placed in a shallow grave, but right now the family is terribly grieved," said the mother's fiance, Noel Moses.
"Why did it have to happen? God, tell me why, what's wrong?," said Jacobs, crying. AT: 18:39 TO: 18:46 DURATION: 0:07 ]
