TX TX - Houston, Bones From 5 Different Indvs In Cardboard Box, May'86

[Finders]

I don't have a Houston Chronicle account but I did search their archives with the Colquitt name and a Dr was sent to prison during that week for selling narcotics. I couldn't read the article and perhaps there is nothing to it but someone earlier suggested perhaps a Dr. If someone has a Chronicle account, please look that up. Thanks!

 

[4SAM]

Could the bones have been used for school purposes....donated for education. Also I have heard where some people have stumbled upon bones and instead of turning them in, they just take them home..EWW.

 

[MaryG12]

Wow.

Calling this bizarre is an understatement.

You don't suppose the victims were some part of - cult practice do you.

 

[EllieBee]

I started to ask if Dean Corll had ever lived in those apts but these remains are a decade too late and to my knowledge, all of Corll's victims were white.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MaryG12]

You don't suppose there was any connection to the Harold Glenn Smith "satanic cult" do you? It happened during that time frame between 1985 to early 1986 in Houston. Sounds like the teens spent a lot of time in cemeteries.


http://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/09...im-to-believe-in-Satanism-beat/4977495259200/


HOUSTON -- Five teenagers who claim to believe in Satanism beat and slashed their victim's throat just to 'watch somebody die,' investigators said Wednesday.

Max Cox, Harris County sheriff's detective, said the five, all in their teens, took turns slashing the throat of Dennis Keith Medler, 19, then choked and stabbed him with a knife and beat him with a pipe and their fists.

Medler's decomposed body was found Aug. 14 behind the Resthaven Memorial Gardens Cemetery.

 

[Pavel]

I have a pretty heavy suspicion that these aren't murder victims. If the only thing found was a small selection of mismatched bones unceremoniously stored in a box and left to an empty apartment, well... doesn't sound like a serial killing to me. Sounds really weird that a killer would have just taken random bones and then later abandoned them to such an easy location. Unless there was, of course, something more found with the bones the police doesn't want to publish yet.

I'd say a better explanation would be grave robbing. Two possibilities that come to mind are:

- the grave robber had some sort of superstitious, psychotic or otherwise mystic purpose for the bones. An attempt to cast a spell or curse? A way to cancel a supposed "curse" or bad luck the robber felt had something to do with those particular deceased? Some other, even more delusional belief? The bones were left behind because the grave robber views their focus fulfilled.

- the grave robber was a necrophiliac. They didn't have the chance to rob entire body but wanted to take trophies home anyway? Maybe the bones were left behind and hidden to that apartment as the robber was afraid of getting caught by someone if the stash was found. Or maybe the robber experienced a moment of remorse, decided to stop their habit and ditched the stash to resist the urge. This kind f behavior is very, very common to people with behavioral addictions such as kleptomania, exhibitionism and underwear/shoe/sock- stealing, sniffing etc.

 

[MaryG12]

I have a pretty heavy suspicion that these aren't murder victims. If the only thing found was a small selection of mismatched bones unceremoniously stored in a box and left to an empty apartment, well... doesn't sound like a serial killing to me. Sounds really weird that a killer would have just taken random bones and then later abandoned them to such an easy location. Unless there was, of course, something more found with the bones the police doesn't want to publish yet.

I'd say a better explanation would be grave robbing. Two possibilities that come to mind are:

- the grave robber had some sort of superstitious, psychotic or otherwise mystic purpose for the bones. An attempt to cast a spell or curse? A way to cancel a supposed "curse" or bad luck the robber felt had something to do with those particular deceased? Some other, even more delusional belief? The bones were left behind because the grave robber views their focus fulfilled.

- the grave robber was a necrophiliac. They didn't have the chance to rob entire body but wanted to take trophies home anyway? Maybe the bones were left behind and hidden to that apartment as the robber was afraid of getting caught by someone if the stash was found. Or maybe the robber experienced a moment of remorse, decided to stop their habit and ditched the stash to resist the urge. This kind f behavior is very, very common to people with behavioral addictions such as kleptomania, exhibitionism and underwear/shoe/sock- stealing, sniffing etc.

I am going with your first one.

That collection of bones is far too specific for anything else I can think of.

 

[thesiren]

This isn't really Montrose it is more the edge of River Oaks.

 

[madamx]

The Bone Collector ha! Iam wondering if the person died and the apartment being cleaned out and surprise surprise they find a box.

Could this person have worked at a funeral home or crematory and kept and collected body parts. Or more sinister body parts from people they actually killed?

Maybe they had a plan to build their Own Skelton out of random parts?

 

[LeenC]

Could these bones date back to before the civil war when slavery was common in Texas? Not to say they have been in the box since then but maybe they were found in the area during the construction of new buildings. It could be they disturbed some old inofficial graves. It could even be that someone had a macabre fascination for everything (and literally everything) pre-civil war and went on his own “treasure hunt” (sorry for the inappropriate description but I couldn’t find a better way to describe what I meant).

I agree that this does not sound like the doing of a serial killer. It sounds more to me like someone was just keeping on to these bones because they considered them a curiosity than that they were actually trying to hise them. I really think this may have been an accidental find, rather than an intentional crime.

I wondered about the doctor theory as well, but normally there shouldn’t be any tissue left on the bones. At our university we do have specimens with muscles or other tissues left on them but they’ve been treated with chemicals or plastified so this theory seems rather unlikely to me, though not completely impossible. If they belonged to a medical student, he must have either taken them from a mogue or as someone mentioned before, stolen them from a grave.

It’s just the fact that it they all appear to be african american that made me pause and think about Texas in a pre-cival war setting.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone with my post. If I did, I apologise. It definitely wasn’t my intention.

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

This kinda reminds me of a case from Sweden a few years back, when LE uncovered skeletal remains in a woman's flat.
PMs in the link!

A 37-year-old Swedish woman with an admitted obsession with skeletons has been convicted of disturbing the peace of the dead for allegedly using human bones for sexual purposes.

Skeleton lover guilty: Swedish court

 

[carbuff]

Oh dear.

 

[Tony1902]

I first considered:
Palo Mayombe—but the remains would be in a ceremonial pot; or
Santa Muerte—but on an altar.
Or medical specimens or a fetishist. Or former med student. Hubs still has skull in his office. Was it established that tissue still remained.?

 

[Dr. Benway]

Guessing these are Native bones, purloined decades ago from unearthed graves.

 

[madamx]

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article212504519.html

He rests in peace no more. The one bone is all that’s left of the dearly departed. His remains were likely stolen by grave robbers who use human bones in religious ceremonies or sell them on the black market.

“There’s a lot of witchcraft going on, and I’ve been offered $1,000 for a skull,” Kennedy said. “It’s inhumane how they’re attacking the dead and dismantling the graves. Our history is buried in these cemeteries.”

A rash of vandalism and an increase in trespassing at three of Miami’s oldest cemeteries has not only disturbed the repose of the deceased but complicated the struggle of protecting and preserving historic sites that have been neglected for years.


Palo followers have been linked to grave looting in Caracas, Venezuela, where skulls were selling for $2,000 and femurs for $450. A Connecticut man who said he was a palero was arrested for stealing bones from two mausoleums in Worcester, Mass. A New Jersey practitioner was arrested when police found human remains in pots in his basement. And a Palo priest in Miami was arrested when police found human bones at his home as well as dead and frozen animals and powder made from the animals that he was selling.

“There’s a black market for everything,” Hurwitz said.

 

[Kano]

I wonder if these bones have been interned or if they are still being kept somewhere. Seems that by our scientific standards today we could test and learn quite a bit more about this case than we could in 1986

 

[MadMcGoo]

Circumstances of Discovery
On May 22, 1986, authorities discovered a cardboard box in an apartment at 2300 Colquitt in Houston. Human remains from five different victims were found in the box. The various remains were from three females (here, here & here) and two males (here & here).

Date of Discovery: May 22, 1986
Location of Discovery: Houston, Harris County, Texas
Cause of Death: Unknown
Dentals: Not available
Fingerprints: Not available
0 Missing Person Exclusions

1356UFTX - Unidentified Female
NamUs UP4248
Agency Case Number: ML86-3118E
NCIC Case Number: U700005794
State of Remains: Skull only
Estimated Age: 18+ years old
Race: Black/African American
DNA: Insufficient DNA for profiling

1357UFTX - Unidentified Female
NamUs UP4250
Agency Case Number: ML86-3118A
NCIC Case Number: U700005692
State of Remains: Femur only
Estimated Age: 30-70 years old
Estimated Height: 5' 0" (60 inches)
DNA: Insufficient DNA for profiling

1358UFTX - Unidentified Female
NamUs UP4249
Agency Case Number: ML86-3118D
NCIC Case Number: U010003943
State of Remains: Humerus only
Race: Black
DNA: Insufficient DNA for profiling

3033UMTX - Unidentified Male
NamUs UP4246
Agency Case Number: ML86-3118C
NCIC Case Number: U840006631
State of Remains: Single bone only
DNA: Available

3034UMTX - Unidentified Male
NamUs UP4243
Agency Case Number: ML86-3118B
NCIC Case Number: U650004718
State of Remains: Single bone only
Estimated Age: 18-70
DNA: Insufficient DNA for profiling

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Bumping case up, although I think this will end up being medical or educational specimens or dug up from graves, not missing persons. How awful they were treated this way, though.

UP4248: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

UP4250: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

UP4249: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

UP4246: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

UP4243: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

 

[Susikatze]

Them almost exclusively having insufficient DNA just screams "medical" or "archeological" to me.
Yes,yes, we sometimes get useable DNA from old samples, but its often not from the long bones but from the inside of the teeth.

 

[lonewanderer]

I remember hearing on TheTrailWentCold about a woman who would steal bones from places like schools, laboratories, etc.

She would then use these bones to plant at crime scenes, and claim that her miracle dog had unearthed them all.

The bones started to not match up to the crimes, and she was visually seen planting the bones at one point too.

Anyways, I have no idea what she was doing in 1986, and would have been 26 years old at that time.

Not saying she in particular is responsible for a mismatched box of bones in Texas, but its one really whacky way that could explain why a box of bones would be found in someone's house.

Pretty lengthy article about her reputation and then conviction starting in 1995 leading up to from 2000/2002:

Leerburg | Director of Search Team is Charged with Faking Evidence