Last month, someone was out walking a dog in Memphis and stumbled upon what looked like a skull. Unsure if it belonged to an animal or a human, the person called the police.
That chance discovery set off what has turned into an extensive investigation, with the police saying on Wednesday that they had located a second skull and 14 additional bones.
The police believe that the skeletal remains belong to three children, between the ages of 3 and 7, and that they have most likely been shrouded in the woods of southeast Memphis for several years.
“Somebody knows where these children have come from,” said Cerelyn Davis, the Memphis police chief, at a news conference in which she asked the public for help.
Chief Davis said investigators were canvassing “every square inch” of a wooded area along Ridge Meadow Parkway, a road less than half a mile long next to a church, a McDonald’s, a dental office and other businesses.
Little is known about the children whose remains were found. Investigators have not determined who they are or how they died. It’s possible they are from somewhere other than Memphis.
But, Chief Davis said, she believes someone knows how the bones ended up in the woods less than four miles from Tennessee’s border with northern Mississippi.
“We are following the evidence wherever it leads,” she said.
So far, that investigation has included searching in drainage pipes, sending out dogs trained to smell for human remains and using a camera to look in hard-to-reach places.
Chief Davis said one of investigators’ first steps had been to look at previous missing person reports, though none immediately proved a match. About 170 people are involved in the investigation in Memphis, including the F.B.I. and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, as well as forensic experts.
The investigation in Memphis follows another grim discovery in California earlier this month, when a child who was taking part in an Easter egg hunt instead found a skull buried in a dirt path. That person also has not been identified.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on stories across the United States, including natural disasters, protests, unsolved mysteries, high-profile criminal cases and more.
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