Bones likely to have come from homicide victim

CELINA - Bones found south of the city are believed to be those of a man who likely was a homicide victim, Mercer County Sheriff Jeff Grey revealed Friday afternoon.

"We have evidence that was recovered that leads us to believe that foul play was involved in the case," he said. "So moving forward this case is going to be treated as a homicide."

Grey would not reveal details about the evidence found Jan. 3 on state-owned land, east of U.S. 127, in a wooded area along Grand Lake.

"We're going to put everything we have into this," he said at a news conference. "The ultimate goal is identifying this person and then arresting the person or persons responsible."

Officials believe the bones represent one victim, a man of unknown race, ranging in age from 20 to 35 years old and between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet 1 inch tall, Grey said. The cause of death was not determined in preliminary autopsy results, he added.

The skeletal remains likely were placed in the area within the last year, Grey said. He would not disclose the number or types of bones recovered but noted investigators do not have a complete skeleton.

"We do know that the evidence and the remains were exposed to the elements, we believe, less than six months, so we're putting it sometime, basically, in 2015 that the body was placed there," he said.

Mercer County does not have any missing-person reports or cold cases, Grey said.

"Part of what we'll be doing is searching to see if there's any other law enforcement agencies that possibly have bones that are unidentified that they can't connect, and if we can find that, possibly see if they're related to our case or if our case is related to their case," he explained.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation will attempt to extract DNA from some of the bones taken to its lab in London, Grey said. Data will be entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System's database.

"Our hope will be that the person's DNA is loaded into that database and we'll be able to make a positive identification," Grey said. "Although at this point not everybody is in that database."

After BCI completes the extraction, those bones and the ones taken to the Montgomery County Coroner's Office will be sent to the University of North Texas for further examination. The work is expected to take six months.

The university was recommended by forensic anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth Murray of Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, who conducted the preliminary autopsy of the bones and found some to be human and others to be animal, Grey said.

Additional information will be entered into The National Institute of Justice's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a national repository and resource center for cases involving missing people and unidentified bodies.

"Dr. Murray, who has worked several of these cases, has agreed to manage the NamUs database for us, looking for whatever similarities we can find," Grey said. "We'll also send out information to other law enforcement agencies as we get information so that they can check their missing-person files."

When asked if other police agencies had called to see if the bones were related to any of their cases, Grey said his department has "received several calls from surrounding law enforcement agencies."

An audio call to authorities that was released to the media revealed that a woman walking her dog Jan. 3 near the state park found several bones and notified the sheriff's office at 2:43 p.m. The skeletal remains were lying in plain view where the woman was walking near the southeast corner of the mouth of Coldwater Creek, Grey said.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources officers, sheriff's deputies and the county coroner initially responded to the area. Bones were found scattered about a wooded section of the park. Initially, they were thought to belong to a deer because people sometimes dump the animals' carcasses in the area, Grey said.

However, some of the bones raised suspicions so officials took them to the Montgomery County Coroner's Office where doctors determined they very likely were human.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was contacted and helped search the scene, Grey said.

"Deputies, ODNR officers and BCI agents were on the scene for two days until we completed the search of the area," he said. "ODNR also brought in human remains detection dogs, or what is commonly referred to as cadaver dogs, to the area and those dogs were very helpful and very successful in the things that they helped us locate."

The investigation at the scene ended Jan. 7; on Tuesday sheriff's detectives transported the bones to the Montgomery County Coroner's Office.

Officials initially wondered if a fisherman had gone back into that area and perhaps had a heart attack or something. But Grey said the theory was soon discarded.

"Well there isn't any reports of anybody missing and, of course, in that area you would expect to find a car or a bicycle or something," he said.

Anyone with information about the case should call sheriff's detectives at 419-586-7724. Callers can remain anonymous by contacting the department's tip line at 567-890-8477.

"That's somebody's family member," Grey said of the bones found. "We have located somebody's family member."