UNSOLVED TN - Nashville, Child's Skull, 4-8, found in flood debris, May'10

they are saying it dates from the 1960's.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100811/NEWS03/100811037/Child+s+skull+found+in+North+Nashville

Metro Police are trying to identify a child’s skull thought to be from the 1960s found in North Nashville.

A cleanup crew found the skull among flood debris on May 17 at Lagrange Drive and Snell Boulevard, police said. The skull was missing its lower jaw.

A forensics examination of the skull found the child was between 4 and 8 years old and died sometime in the mid 1960s. A check of local cemeteries has been unable to turn up any cases where graves were flooded or washed away.

Anyone with information about any burial sites that may have been disturbed by the floods is asked to call the Medical Examiner’s Office at 615-743-1800 or Metro Police at 615-862-7329

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I know this isn't a lot of information to go on, but I thought it should be here in case more details come out. I am going to look and see if there are any local missing children cases from that time in this area.

Dennis Lloyd Martin is the only child (i.e., in Charley or DoeNet) in that age range and from that era missing from Tennessee.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/martin_dennis.html


However, the Smokey Mountains are quite far from Nashville.

Alan John Westerfield is from Fayetteville North Carolina, about an equal distance in the opposite direction.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/westerfield_alan.html

southern_scout said:

they are saying it dates from the 1960's.

Metro Police are trying to identify a child’s skull thought to be from the 1960s found in North Nashville.

A forensics examination of the skull found the child was between 4 and 8 years old and died sometime in the mid 1960s.

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Is there any way to determine whether the skull is from a boy or a girl?

nerosleuth said:

Is there any way to determine whether the skull is from a boy or a girl?

Click to expand...

It's quite difficult to determine gender and ethnicity of a skull under 14 years old. If they can get DNA, then they would be able to determine gender.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/2...ild-s-skull-continues-to-baffle-investigators

By Nicole Young • THE TENNESSEAN • September 4, 2010

Child's skull continues to baffle investigators

snipped:

We've gotten no response from the public whatsoever," said Denise Martin, director of investigations for the Nashville Medical Examiner's Office. "Cold case officers are still looking into missing children going back to the 1960s. We're still hoping to get a lead from the public or from an old record."

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More at link.

From the above link posted by Kat:

Detectives are asking anyone with information about small family burial sites or graveyards to contact the medical examiner's office at 615-743-1800 or Metro detectives at 615-862-7329.

eta: I wonder if local church records might have info on small family burial sites or graveyards.
Where might that info be sleuthed?

tia

Thanks for editing that for me Cubby, I had walked away from the computer!

I wonder how far out from Nashville we would have to sleuth the family burial plots? Interesting way to go about finding this child's identity.

YW Kat.....Where did the flooding come from? Was there small creeks, rivers? What was in the area? What is known about family plots? I honestly don't know much about them in general. Is there a place to find records of family plots?

I don't imagine this child would be listed in the SSDI. Perhaps a death record for the county where the remains were found? ETA: Not all counties are on ancestry..... maybe just local for this county? Do we have a local who might do some on the foot off the net research?

I honestly have little idea how to search family plots.... but someone here should know. WS'rs seem to have knowledge of somekind in about every area.

Cubby said:

What is known about family plots? I honestly don't know much about them in general. Is there a place to find records of family plots?

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I believe that you're more likely to find family cemeteries out in rural areas.

Your best bet for finding family cemeteries would be from local funeral homes and the local genealogy society of the area that you're interested in. They would have the names of cemeteries in their area.

There exists even today in rural areas of WV, KY, OH, that I know for certain births and deaths and burials that are not recorded anywhere.

I am personally familiar with cases even in the 50's where people are buried in what they call a "family" plot. Sometimes this is a tract of land in the hills that they don't even legally own, but have claimed through generations. These "cemeteries" usually bear the surname of one family and are not found on maps.

There are also "cemeteries" that are near or adjacent to churches that are called family cemeteries and generally there are many others outside one family who are buried there. Some may have markers and most don't.

In the past (I have a 1959 case) the preacher of the local church (not necessarily ordained) kept births, marriages and deaths only he officiated, handwritten within a ledger. There was not back up paperwork and no formerly filed notifications in most of these cases. If someone wanted to know where there family member was buried, they would call the locals to start a long and complicated search for known burial sites and preachers.

Once the actual "cemetery" was identified and the date confirmed by the preacher's ledger, it was another task entirely to find the grave site. Most are not marked. I don't know the requirements for filing these deaths but it must be complicated because so many have gone unreported. Best of luck.

The Tennessean links are dead already.

"I was about 10 feet away when I saw it at the very bottom of the pile," he [Derick Donald] said. "It looked old, and it was really small. It had all the top teeth, but the bottom jaw was missing."
...
Metro police have been working with the Davidson County Medical Examiner's office to determine where the skull came from, but so far they've come up empty-handed.

Authorities believe it's the skull of a child between 4 and 8 who likely died decades ago. The medical examiner's office and anthropologists at Middle Tennessee State University have examined the skull. Police aren't sure how it ended up in North Nashville.

"Carbon dating on the skull suggests the child lived and died in the 1960s," said Denise Martin, director of investigations at the Medical Examiner's office. "Determining race or gender is next to impossible in a pre-adolescent child."

Martin said there were no distinguishing marks and no signs of trauma. It's not uncommon for a lower jaw of a skeleton to be missing.

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http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=130423&provider=rss

This article narrows the date range further:
http://www.wsmv.com/news/24593793/detail.html

Metro police said the skull is likely from the 1960s. It was found by a cleanup crew worker at the intersection of Lagrange Drive and Snell Boulevard in North Nashville.

..
After examinations, physicians at the city’s medical examiner’s office and MTSU anthropologists said the child was likely between the ages of 4 and 8 at the time of death, which is believed to have occurred in the early to mid-1960s.

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Cubby said:

YW Kat.....Where did the flooding come from? Was there small creeks, rivers? What was in the area? What is known about family plots? I honestly don't know much about them in general. Is there a place to find records of family plots?

I don't imagine this child would be listed in the SSDI. Perhaps a death record for the county where the remains were found? ETA: Not all counties are on ancestry..... maybe just local for this county? Do we have a local who might do some on the foot off the net research?

I honestly have little idea how to search family plots.... but someone here should know. WS'rs seem to have knowledge of somekind in about every area.

Click to expand...

There was record flooding in Tennessee in May 2010 so the skull could have been washed there from quite a distance away -- anywhere upriver, really.

Here's the spot where it was found, right in a loop of the Cumberland River: Snell Blvd and Lagrange Drive, Nashville

I couldn't find any update at all on this case and the skull isn't in Namus. It sounds like they're pretty sure it was dislodged from a burial ground during the flooding:

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/12966174/skull-found-during-flood-cleanup-identified-as-child
"If you know of any burial sites or cemeteries that may have been disturbed during the floods -- call police."

Not in Namus still.

Not in Namus. Post #11 has a quote that says the upper teeth were present so perhaps in future there will be a DNA-based enquiry.

Still not in NamUs