Human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site near Auburn Community Hospital this week, police said.
In a news release Friday, the Auburn Police Department said it was contacted at about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday about possible human remains unearthed while a contractor was excavating at the site of the hospital's new Auburn Heart Institute. The Cayuga County coroner inspected the uncovered portion of the remains and believed them to be human, police said.
Police said the area of the excavation appears to not have been disturbed for at least 50 years, and only one set of remains has been found there.
Since the remains are possibly more than 50 years old, police continued, the New York state archaeologist has been contacted about them as required by state law. The New York State Police Forensic Investigative Unit has been contacted as well, and plans have been made to exhume the remains.
No further information about the remains is known, police said, including age, sex or cause of death.
Police Chief Matthew Androsko told 水果派AV the remains were located between 4 and 10 feet below the surface, "so it wasn't a shallow grave." He added that their age could make it difficult to determine what occurred.聽
Along with Auburn police and the county coroner, the Cayuga County District Attorney's Office responded to the site, police said.
Anyone with further information about the investigation is asked to contact Detective Charles Augello at craugello@auburnny.gov or Capt. Kyle Platt at kplatt@auburnny.gov, or call the department at (315) 253-3231.
A selection of bones belonging to a juvenile mastodon who roamed the woods of Michigan 13,000 years ago is now on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, after workers unearthed it by chance last year. Excited museum officials showed off some of the long-extinct pachyderm's remains on Thursday, although much of the skeleton still is going through the drying process.
Executive Editor David Wilcox can be reached at (315) 282-2245 or david.wilcox@lee.net.
