(File Photo of the Beaver Cemetery)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Beaver County, PA) Crews in Beaver County recently exhumed graves of four unknown people, which included the embalmed head of a woman found nearly 12 years ago, in hopes of getting positive identification of the individuals who passed away.
The exhumations are being completed thanks to a federal grant which is to the University of South Florida (USF).
USF researchers contacted Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible about the potential of exhuming the embalmed head for further DNA testing and Bible wants to identify who they are.
The most well-known cold case of these four is the one regarding the embalmed head, which was found by a teenager in Economy in December of 2014.
Investigators have never been able to identify the woman who the embalmed head belongs to or find the rest of her remains.
DNA testing was done on this head.
However, investigators noted that the embalming fluid corrupted the DNA that was in the tissue.
A match was never found.
Court paperwork filed to allow the graves to be exhumed shows that the researchers want to try more testing, which includes taking DNA from the dense bone at the base of the skull.
Bible stated that the researchers are also interested in three other cold cases which are from the 1960s.
One of them is regarding a baby, because Baby John Doe is buried over at Sylvania Hills in Daugherty Township.
A man was checking local dumps for copper in October of 1968 when he found the baby on the ground at a dump in Raccoon Township.
Police said at the time that the baby was covered with fiberglass while the child was still alive.
He had been there for two days.
According to Bible, “There was a partial umbilical cord still attached.”
Police at the time said the skin was so badly deteriorated that the baby’s race was unable to be identified.
Two other John Does are both buried over at Oak Grove Cemetery in Industry.
One of the men was found in the Ohio River by barge workers for the now-defunct Thomas Petroleum Transit Company on May 25th, 1960.
This man was face down and was entangled in flowing driftwood.
The coroner at the time said that the body was in the water for about 3 weeks.
He is identified as a white male, that was 50-55 years old, and mostly bald, with hair on sides of his head.
Investigators stated that he was 5’7″ and about 170 pounds.
Another man was also found in the Ohio River in Freedom by a railroad car inspector that was employed by Pennsylvania Railroad on April 24, 1967.
That man was in the water for potentially two to three months.
Police affirmed that he was a white male who was 56-60 years old, 5’9″, and about 150 pounds.
WPXI had a chance to speak 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 confirmed that they had a full skeleton.
The casket that the man was buried in had disintegrated.
Vaults were not used at the time that these burials occurred.
Beaver County representatives said that the county will use forfeiture funds from crimes to pay for remains to be placed in vaults, not taxpayer dollars.
All of these remains will be replaced this week and Bible affirmed that it could be between 6-9 months before the testing is completed.
