Additional human remains recovered
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
Officials hope this discovery will produce DNA and possible match
By RUSSELL TURNER
Dispatch Editor
__________
A multi-agency effort involving over 40 police officers and volunteers uncovered new evidence earlier last week that county officials hope will be the break they were looking for in a case involving a partial human skull found on New Year’s Eve.
A deer hunter walking in a wooded area off Progress Road in the Little Creek Community on Dec. 31, 2019, found a partial human skull. After weeks of waiting on forensic results, Perry County Sheriff Mitch Nobles was notified the state crime lab could not obtain any viable DNA from the samples originally sent.
Nobles and a team of officers searched the immediate area after the original discovery, but did not find any additional human remains. After getting the call from the crime lab, they went back to the location and expanded the search area.
“We decided to revisit the area where the skull was found and expanded the distance to broaden the search,” Sheriff Nobles said last Friday. “More than 40 volunteers including law enforcement, fire departments, EMA directors and USM students conducted a grid search of the area to look for more remains.”
“After nothing was found, we decided to search the woods across the road where we recovered more bones including two femur bones that we believe to be human bones. We secured the scenes and collected all the bones found. These bones will be taken to the Mississippi Crime Lab for further testing.”
Nobles said the remains appeared to be from a female, but that has not been confirmed. The bones are believed to have been in the location for quite some time.
“We would like to personally say Thank You to everyone that came out and participated in the search,” Nobles added.
Nobles said volunteers for the search included individuals from the Forrest/Perry District Attorney’s Office, Forrest/Perry Metro Task Force officials, Perry County EMA,
Jones County EMA, as well as volunteer firefightrs from Richton, Wayne County, Calhoun, Runnelstown and New Augusta departments. Dist. 1 Supervisor Bobby Ray Bolton was also part of the search team as well as students from the USM Biological Anthropology Department.
