Family pet brings home human leg bone
YELM -- Police in Thurston County have a mystery on their hands.
Skeletal remains found in a wooded area on the Nisqually reservation near Yelm.
Police were alerted to the remains after a dog brought home a human leg bone.
It is especially for the family who found the bone lying in the front yard.
The dog, named Liberty, found the bone last Tuesday but the 93 year old owner didn’t know what to do so be buried it but his daughter convinced him to call police.
Liberty has always brought things home from the surrounding forest.
But never has she brought home human remains, until Tuesday.
"My dad came out to feed the dogs and approximately two feet from the trampoline there was a human leg apparently sawed off about four inches below the buttocks.,” the dog’s owner Cheryl Flowers said.
Thurston County Sheriff’s investigators spent much of Saturday and all day Sunday down a dead end street near the fish hatchery searching for the rest of the body.
Five search dogs were put to work and it didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for.
"Shortly after about one this afternoon one of the dog teams discovered what appeared to be human remains. We discovered a ribcage and a pelvis and a short time later we discovered part of a skull and a jawbone, Thurston County Lieutenant Ray Brady said.
Right now investigators don’t know whether the remains are male or female, how old the victim was or the cause of death.
While most of the body has been found, police say an arm and a leg are still missing.
"I just hope they find whoever it was and give some peace to their family,” Flowers said.
Now it is obviously very early in the investigation but right now Thurston County investigators say they are unable to tie the remains to any missing person in the area.
The coroner will begin work Monday trying to identify the victim and determine how he or she died.