Gruesome Mystery Of Eight Skeletons In A Forest

[Nomad559]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20236967

On the morning of March 23rd, around 10 o'clock, Detective Sgt. Jennifer Soto received a phone call that would lead her and other officers into a dark forest, and involve them in an unsettling mystery.

The caller said a human skull had just been found in a thick stand of melaleuca trees off Arcadia Road. At first, Soto and her partner were skeptical, because the area had long been used as a dumping ground by hunters disposing of hog and alligator remains.

Walking through the thick brush, however, it didn't take long for them to confirm the report was true. In fact, there was much more than just one human skull.

[ixion]

1. wow...that's quite a mystery...

:wow:

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Totally weird. Gruesome, of course, but WEIRD!

First, and quite properly, they know more than they're telling us. For one thing, it is possible to roughly estimate age from skeletal remains. Race information is relatively easy (black, white, Native American, oriental)--but there is no Hispanic "type," since New World Hispanics can range from Afro-Carib to Mediterranean-Mayan. DNA data will sort this out in some detail.

But these bodies seem to have been just lying around in the woods, unburied for a number of years. And nobody stumbled across them? Eight bodies? Doesn't anybody walk in the woods in Florida?

As to means of death, again we don't know what they aren't telling us, but from the report one guesses that there were no skeletal traumas such as would have been present if they had been stabbed, shot, clubbed, or otherwise done in by brute-force means. That leaves what? Poisoning of some sort? Carbon monoxide? At this late date there would surely be no trace of CO to detect, although other poisons might be present in the remaining tissues.

Ah, well, time will tell.

But, God, ya gotta wonder--did they say something nasty to Jeb, or what?

[NYC]

3. Strange.

...were able to determine that all of the victims were white males, perhaps some of them Hispanic. Their ages ranged from 18 to 49.

It was estimated they were placed in the woods between 1980 and 2000.

All but one of the victims had good teeth, and had obviously taken care of them. "That told me," said Walsh-Haney, "that they had the wherewithal, the finances, to seek out what can be very expensive dental work."

[YDogg]

4. Lost geocachers?

:shrug: