UNSOLVED CA - San Francisco, Skeletal Remains, 8-14, in sidewalk planter boxes, Nov'15

Cross posting..
''A retired cold case homicide detective told ABC7 there is a possibility the bones could have belonged to Kevin Collins, a 10-year-old boy that went missing in 1984.

'The only case that I know of of a child that is unsolved, and the child's body has not been found, is Kevin Collins,' retired San Francisco detective Joe Toomey said.''

 
Terra cotta doesn't get destroyed by termites. The articles say the remains were discovered when the tenant tried to salvage the plants from the planters, which were infested with termites.
Yeah the terracotta ones in the thumbnail must be stock footage. I was pleasantly surprised that the video for the story was still on that local news site from 2015 and I snapped a cap they show of some boxes with crime scene tape on them, but they seem more like they're on the sidewalk? They do seem to be wood though, I think probably(?). I'm not 100% sure exactly what we're looking at here. Seems like there's a car wheel and things driven into the ground? Screenshot_20230320-001424.png
 
My first thought is Anna Christian Waters. Anna is a bit young for the estimated age, but we know ages can be wrong. She went missing about 30 miles from where the bones were found.

 
Yeah the terracotta ones in the thumbnail must be stock footage. I was pleasantly surprised that the video for the story was still on that local news site from 2015 and I snapped a cap they show of some boxes with crime scene tape on them, but they seem more like they're on the sidewalk? They do seem to be wood though, I think probably(?). I'm not 100% sure exactly what we're looking at here. Seems like there's a car wheel and things driven into the ground? View attachment 410041
I suspect that's a small patch of cultivated land by a roadway. The four uprights in the middle are possibly a framework around a young tree, to protect it from damage from things like people opening their car doors into it. You can see the edge of the trunk of it in the middle just to the left of that central upright in the foreground. Two wooden planters, one to each side, and little strips of premade picket fence painted black either side of the central square with the tree. The surface to the far left seems to be pavement/sidewalk. You can see a light stripe where the edge of one slab seems to have been ground down. They do that when tree roots push up a concrete slab in a public walkway, to try and smooth out a trip hazard, but it can also happen naturally with heavy foot traffic and things like wheeled carts and skateboards going over it regularly.

Of course, the issue with it being just out on the street like that means, in theory, anybody could have put remains in them. It's not like this was on someone's balcony a few floors up, or in a courtyard only accessed by residents and maintenance workers.

MOO
 
rbbm 2016
''KGO-TV spoke with the woman who said she found the first bone and who said the planter boxes were put on the porch by a tenant in 2007. A couple of weeks ago, she told the station, she was going to save the plants and throw out the boxes and that's when she found a human bone in the soil.''
1679414469793.png

1679414655530.png
''Human remains were found in these two planters, perched on the green ledges by a San Francisco residential building, in November
A jawbone found among the remains belonged to a child, San Francisco police Sgt. Nico Discenza told ABC7.''
 
rbbm 2016
''KGO-TV spoke with the woman who said she found the first bone and who said the planter boxes were put on the porch by a tenant in 2007. A couple of weeks ago, she told the station, she was going to save the plants and throw out the boxes and that's when she found a human bone in the soil.''
View attachment 410289

View attachment 410290
''Human remains were found in these two planters, perched on the green ledges by a San Francisco residential building, in November
A jawbone found among the remains belonged to a child, San Francisco police Sgt. Nico Discenza told ABC7.''
Stating the obvious here, but those planters are tiny! I was imagining sidewalk-sized planters. This photo really makes the case more eerie. We need an update on these bones!
 
I wonder if these remains might be connected to Terry Pedar Rasmussen the Bear Brook killer. a couple things make me think this. it being an adult and a child, the bones show signs of being cut up, possibly with a saw as was stated in one of the articles, and the remains being pretty old and could date all the way back to the 1980s during a time where he was traced all over the state of California. I've always remembered the story Lisa/Dawn had of supposedly having siblings and TPR one day telling her they died eating grass mushrooms. there's also been other people who have comfirmed that another family existed alongside TPR and Lisa/Dawn, a babysitter who watched an infant who she assumed belonged to TPR, recalls seeing TPR with an unidentified women and children in a car together around 1984/85 in Orange County. could these remains be them? its possible he killed them in a similar fashion to the Bear Brook victims and buried them somewhere instead of stuffing them in barrels and years later someone came by and dug up dirt for the planters and unknowingly unearthed their remains and didnt even know it. I know this might not be anything and im unsure if LE is even still investigating these remains since there haven't been any updates since the initial story broke in 2016. but I just thought I should put this out there as the timeline, area and similarities has me wondering.
 
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I wonder if these remains might be connected to Terry Pedar Rasmussen the Bear Brook killer. a couple things make me think this. it being an adult and a child, the bones show signs of being cut up, possibly with a saw as was stated in one of the articles, and the remains being pretty old and could date all the way back to the 1980s during a time where he was traced all over the state of California. I've always remembered the story Lisa/Dawn had of supposedly having siblings and TPR one day telling her they died eating grass mushrooms. there's also been other people who have comfirmed that another family existed alongside TPR and Lisa/Dawn, a babysitter who watched an infant who she assumed belonged to TPR, recalls seeing TPR with an unidentified women and children in a car together around 1984/85 in Orange County. could these remains be them? its possible he killed them in a similar fashion to the Bear Brook victims and buried them somewhere instead of stuffing them in barrels and years later someone came by and dug up dirt for the planters and unknowingly unearthed their remains and didnt even know it. I know this might not be anything and im unsure if LE is even still investigating these remains since there haven't been any updates since the initial story broke in 2016. but I just thought I should put this out there as the timeline, area and similarities has me wondering.
Welcome to Ws @foxy46, intriguing idea about the possibility of a connection to TPR!
 
DBM. I had asked if that tenant from 2007 was located by LE and whether the property itself was searched, in case they used soil from a back garden area. Page one of this thread confirms the property was searched and no other bones found.
 
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Since this case was never added to NamUs, do we assume LE believes it will never be solved? And they do not want further tips/inquiries from the public, is my assumption. JMO
I did a quick search and couldn't see any media saying it is solved. And Kevin Collins' case is still active, so even if they were ID, sadly the remains didn't belong to him, so still no answers for his family.
 
Slightly gross but- it's entirely possible someone interred a loved one illegally and LE sees no point in pursuing the case.

Weirder things have happened......
 
Slightly gross but- it's entirely possible someone interred a loved one illegally and LE sees no point in pursuing the case.

Weirder things have happened......

Maybe.. but one of the reports upthread has photos of the planter boxes and they are tiny, if they were interred illegally wouldn't they bury the whole body, not just a partial jaw?
 
Maybe.. but one of the reports upthread has photos of the planter boxes and they are tiny, if they were interred illegally wouldn't they bury the whole body, not just a partial jaw?
I read somewhere that Chinese people dis-inter bodies for ceremonial burials/rituals.
& It's horrible to imagine but someone not wanting to pay for a proper burial might have, uh, done a home burial that was super strange but hidden to all. The police in CA have seen weirder things.
 
True. I just assumed the dirt was landfill and maybe came from an old graveyard, since there were remains of the child plus another individual identified.
That's probably the least awful option. Old graveyards and family plots are everywhere, and most living people don't know that their suburb or highway used to be the site of one.

MOO
 

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