By The newspaper
Aug 30, 2023, 20:15 PM EDT
A group of Boy Scouts made a discovery during a recent outing at summer camp in Massachusetts.
The youths allegedly stumbled upon human skeletal remains while exploring Rawson Island in the Connecticut River near Greenfield and Montague on Aug. 23, People reported, citing a press release from the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.
The discovery of the group of children was made around noon and later an adult contacted local police, according to the office statement.
“Investigators collected what they could that day,” the statement reportedly obtained by People reportedly read. “The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was on site the following day to ensure the recovery of all remains.”
According to the outlet, a local medical examiner is currently working on identifying the human remains discovered during the exploration of the children.
The matter remains under investigation by the Greenfield Police Department, Montague Police Department, State Police Crime Scene Services, the Massachusetts Emergency Response Task Force and the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit. .
“This is very much an open investigation,” Laurie Loisel, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
In addition, Kurt Heidinger, chief executive of Westhampton-based Biocitizen, an environmental philosophy program in which children participated, told the aforementioned outlet that a 7-year-old boy first saw the bones.
The group, which included about two dozen students and staff members, had been investigating the low water level of the Connecticut River at the time.
Heidinger added that he initially thought the remains belonged to a deer, but when a teacher and several children returned to the scene after a lunch break, they stirred up some sand on the ground and dug up a skull.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a human skull,’” Heidinger recounted, noting that the discovery quickly turned grim.
The man told the outlet that students have since created a small shrine near the Westfield River in Chesterfield in honor of the person whose remains they found.
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