BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. — Crews in Beaver County spent Tuesday exhuming graves of four unknown people, including the embalmed head of a woman found nearly 12 years ago, in hopes of getting positive identification of the deceased individuals.
The exhumations are being done thanks to a federal grant to the University of South Florida. Researchers with the university contacted Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible about the potential of exhuming the embalmed head for further DNA testing.
“The biggest thing is just identifying who these people are,” Bible said.
The most well-known cold case of these four is that of the embalmed head, found by a teenager in Economy in December 2014.
Investigators have never been able to identify her or find the rest of her remains.
“Even though this is only 12 years, which isn’t a long time, but the way that the testing has progressed is really something amazing,” Bible said.
DNA testing was done on the head. But investigators said the embalming fluid corrupted the DNA in the tissue. A match was never found.
Court paperwork filed to allow the graves to be exhumed shows the researchers want to try more testing, including taking DNA from the dense bone at the base of the skull.
“Since they have the funding to do it, they’re really running the full gambit on everything,” Bible said.
Bible said the researchers are also interested in three other cold cases from the 1960s — one of them, a baby.
Baby John Doe is buried at Sylvania Hills in Daugherty Township.
Channel 11 was there as crews worked to dig at the grave.
In October 1968, a man was checking local dumps for copper when he found the baby on the ground at a dump in Raccoon Township. Police at the time said the baby was covered with fiberglass while still alive. He’d been there for two days.
“There was a partial umbilical cord still attached,” Bible said. Police at the time said the skin was so badly deteriorated; the baby’s race was not able to be identified.
The two other John Does are both buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in Industry.
One of the men was found in the Ohio River on May 25, 1960, by barge workers for the now-defunct Thomas Petroleum Transit Company. The man was face down, entangled in flowing driftwood. The coroner at the time said the body was in the water for about 3 weeks.
He’s identified as a white male, 50-55 years old, mostly bald, with hair on sides of his head. Investigators said he was 5’7” and about 170 pounds.
The other man was also found in the Ohio River in Freedom on April 24, 1967, by a railroad car inspector employed by Pennsylvania Railroad. That man was in the water for potentially two to three months. Police said he was a white male, 56-60 years old, 5’9”, and about 150 pounds.
Channel 11 spoke with one of the investigators at Oak Grove Cemetery off camera after they brought out what appeared to be a bone from the grave. He said they had a full skeleton.
The casket the man was buried in had disintegrated. Vaults were not used at the time of these burials. The county said it will use forfeiture funds from crimes to pay for remains to be placed in vaults, not taxpayer dollars.
“To have any idea of what happened to them, where they might have gone, what became of them, to provide those answers to them, I think, is just amazing,” Bible said.
The embalmed head will be exhumed from the Beaver Cemetery and Mausoleum on Tuesday.
All of the remains will be replaced this week.
Bible said it could be between 6-9 months before the testing is finished.
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