UNSOLVED AL - Russell Co, (Ghost?) Child, >10, Bones Found in Mobile Home Floor, Oct'04
- Thread starter Casshew
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2024
- Messages
- 1,472
- Reaction score
- 11,356
Could we reach out to the police department/appropriate investigation agency and ask about the status of this?
I am not Sherlock H.
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2023
- Messages
- 1,752
- Reaction score
- 16,379
Very interesting, intriguing, and sad unresolved case. And great theories given in the thread.
The origin and nature of the bones and condition are important….. as well as the movements of that mobile home and land on which it resided. As earlier suggested an archaeologist or zoologist might help with the nature of the bones and any markings on them would be important. What type of animal might move, store, or secret them, if the case? Evidence if they had been stored in soil and / or in the confines of the trailer floor cavity might help. Perhaps they were from a discovered grave, although some other nefarious source can’t yet be ruled out it seems. Carbon dating could be done on them in the absence of any DNA I believe?
Sharing this experience with wild raccoons as someone above mentioned they often wash or clean food prior to eating. And that is true. (One often will see raccoon prints in the soft mud near the edge of stream.) As a teenager we lived in eastern Virginia. House was set about 200 yards from a creek to the James River. Often chicken bones and other food spoils were left in the covered metal trash cans adjacent the waist high brick wall of an open carport. The next morning we frequently found the cans lids open, aluminum foil spread…. and the neatly aligned cleaned chicken bones left adjacent and parallel to each other on the brick wall. Very neatly done in a neat tidy row, picked clean. A raccoon.
Based on the reported bone location it probably was not a raccoon in this case that had placed them there. Perhaps another rodent or carnivore?
If foul play was involved, and the bones were earlier buried near or underneath the mobile home, and someone well knew that…… then when moving they might have realized need to gather them and prevent others from finding them? And thus why they might have been placed in the floor cavity? One could work clandestinely beneath the skirted crawl space of the home.
Hope that this case can be further understood and maybe more answers obtained. And glad to see the offer of Othram above. MOO
The origin and nature of the bones and condition are important….. as well as the movements of that mobile home and land on which it resided. As earlier suggested an archaeologist or zoologist might help with the nature of the bones and any markings on them would be important. What type of animal might move, store, or secret them, if the case? Evidence if they had been stored in soil and / or in the confines of the trailer floor cavity might help. Perhaps they were from a discovered grave, although some other nefarious source can’t yet be ruled out it seems. Carbon dating could be done on them in the absence of any DNA I believe?
Sharing this experience with wild raccoons as someone above mentioned they often wash or clean food prior to eating. And that is true. (One often will see raccoon prints in the soft mud near the edge of stream.) As a teenager we lived in eastern Virginia. House was set about 200 yards from a creek to the James River. Often chicken bones and other food spoils were left in the covered metal trash cans adjacent the waist high brick wall of an open carport. The next morning we frequently found the cans lids open, aluminum foil spread…. and the neatly aligned cleaned chicken bones left adjacent and parallel to each other on the brick wall. Very neatly done in a neat tidy row, picked clean. A raccoon.
Based on the reported bone location it probably was not a raccoon in this case that had placed them there. Perhaps another rodent or carnivore?
If foul play was involved, and the bones were earlier buried near or underneath the mobile home, and someone well knew that…… then when moving they might have realized need to gather them and prevent others from finding them? And thus why they might have been placed in the floor cavity? One could work clandestinely beneath the skirted crawl space of the home.
Hope that this case can be further understood and maybe more answers obtained. And glad to see the offer of Othram above. MOO