The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

October 21, 2008

Unearthed arm bones still puzzling experts

By Monica Pryts

GREENVILLE — Forensic experts are still puzzled about human arm bones found Aug. 7 underneath a house being demolished in Greenville.

The team from Mercyhurst College in Erie is still piecing together a final report of what one of the scientists calls an “odd situation” since the three bones that make up one arm were the only remains found.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” said Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat, director of Mercyhurst’s applied forensic sciences program.

Dirkmaat and his colleague Dr. Steve Symes, both board-certified forensic anthropologists at the college, are sticking with their original theory that the bones belonged to a young to middle-age woman and were likely part of an anatomical specimen used for teaching or studying.

Doctors or professors used to buy human bones from biological supply houses, but the real thing has become costly and many people studying or displaying bones now use plastic models, Dirkmaat said Tuesday.

Previous residents of the 100-year-old house at 103 Shenango St. have been interviewed, yielding no connections between them and the bones, he said.

There is no indication of foul play, confirmed Dirkmaat and Mercer County Deputy Coroner John Libonati.

No tests have been performed on the bones to extract DNA, a procedure that must be ordered by the coroner’s office, Dirkmaat said.

However, both men agree that even if DNA still exists in the bones, there are no other samples to compare it to because of the lack of other evidence.

Once Dirkmaat and Symes issue a final report, Libonati said he’ll decide if further tests should be done.

There have been many cases where bones from humans and animals have been found in walls and under floors of older homes, but experts usually have more to go on than one arm.

“I don’t know what the thinking is there,” Dirkmaat said.

He cited the Sept. 16 discovery of human skeletons in a home being renovated in Wayne Township, Crawford County. Authorities believe the decades-old remains belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which once used the home, according to an Associated Press story.

An Odd Fellows member from Conneaut Lake said his former lodge used skeletons as symbols of lifetime membership. The Odd Fellows used to buy skeletons from medical schools or other legal outlets, but now use plastic replicas, authorities said.

The house in Greenville was last owned by Dr. Sam Orr IV, a former Mercer County District Attorney who bought it in 1971 and sold it this summer to Sheetz.

Orr moved from the area in 1986 to attend medical school in Florida, went on to run a general family practice and now lives in South Carolina.

A demolition crew was tearing down the house behind Sheetz to make room for a bigger convenience store when they saw the bones.

The house’s last tenant, retired Herald Managing Editor Noel Carroll, and Orr have both said they believe the bones were found under a wooden section of an otherwise concrete basement floor.

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