Authorities investigate bones found in woods
Officials await results of autopsy performed in Freehold on Monday
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

Authorities continue to investigate skeletal remains found in Upper Freehold last week.A deer hunter discovered a human skull and other skeletal remains in a wooded area near Route 526 in Clayton Park on Friday morning, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

“The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is working on this case along with the state police and the Department of Missing Persons,” Prosecutor John Kaye said. “We’re doing everything we can because when a child is missing, someone is looking for [him or her].”

The Monmouth County Medical Examiner’s Office in Freehold currently has the bones, according to Kaye.

“The teeth will be sent to a forensic dentist today,” Kaye said. “I don’t know how long the testing will take because it’s not every day [that] we have to call the dentist to do this.”

Kaye said the forensic dentist will look at the teeth as the county’s chief medical examiner, Jay Peacock, looked at the remains and discovered evidence of fire.

“It appears there was some type of fire set on the body,” Kaye said. “We’ve based this on the teeth and some parts of clothing we found near the remains.”

Peacock and a state forensic anthropologist looked at the bones on Monday, according to Kaye.

“They determined that the bones belong to a child’s torso,” Kaye said.

Kaye said the approximate age of the child when he or she died would have been between 5 and 9 years old.

“There was no evidence of trauma on the skeletal remains, but that does not mean that the child did not experience trauma before [his or her] death,” Kaye said.

Although the medical examination did not reveal gender or race, Kaye said, “We tend to believe this was an African American child. The body has been outside for over a year.”

Kaye said the county prosecutor’s office would handle any charges brought up in the case, but the state police are leading the investigation.

After the hunter discovered the skull while he was reportedly removing his tree stand, Kaye said police reviewed the area and found the other bones.

State police patrol Clayton Park, which consists of more than 400 acres of recreational space with 6 miles of trails.

In December 2002, near Emley’s Hill Road, two hunters found a suitcase containing the body of a man.

Authorities could not determine the man’s cause of death from an autopsy, but toxicology test results showed the presence of toxic levels of heroin in the victim’s system.

The man, who was in his late teens to early 20s, was Hispanic, 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. The victim had on blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a Chicago White Sox jersey, but was without shoes, socks and a coat.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the absence of warm clothing pointed to the possibility that the man died indoors and was transported to the location in which the bag was found.

Although authorities distributed a sketch of the man and investigated the matter for two years, the prosecutor’s office “administratively closed” the case in March 2003.

Kaye did not speculate on whether the two missing persons cases could be related.