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Found & Recovered Bodies (In General; Misc.)

A scrap metal thief's body was found in an abandoned funeral home.
Body found inside abandoned Flint funeral home belonged to a scrapper, building owner says

A man whose body was found inside an abandoned funeral home in Flint died while trying to steal scrap metal, according to the owner of the building.

Three urban explorers found the man crushed beneath a hydraulic coffin lift in the basement of Swanson Funeral Home at 2210 Martin Luther King Ave. earlier this month.

O’Neil D. Swanson II, owner of the funeral home, tells Metro Times that the man “was crushed because he cut a cable” to steal metal wire from the building, causing the lift to fall on top of him.

“It’s unfortunate that this happened,” Swanson says. “But he had no business being in my facility.”

The funeral home was forced to close in 2017 after state inspectors allege they found unrefrigerated human bodies, maggots, blood-stained casket pillows, and an unsanitary preparation room.

Swanson disputes the allegations and says he plans to rehabilitate the funeral home with the goal of reopening. ...

When the funeral home closed its doors, it left behind supplies and a hearse in the garage.

Since then, trespassers have stolen scrap metal and sprayed the hearse with graffiti.

"Unfortunately, criminals and thieves have come into that building, and they destroyed the electrical system, destroyed the plumbing system, took out wire took out, copper piping,” Swanson says. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.metrotimes.com/news/bod...ed-to-a-scrapper-building-owner-says-30261987
 
A Japanese man discovered a human skull in the upstairs room or apartment of his brother, whom he claimed he'd not seen since 2017, and put it into the rubbish bin on the assumption it was an artificial replica. It wasn't. The skull was his brother's, and the rest of the brother's skeletal remains were discovered in the room. Needless to say, the authorities are investigating ...
Tokyo man arrested for putting brother’s skull out for recycling collection

Suspect claims he thought it was fake.

On 21 June workers at a recycling plant in Adachi, Tokyo were given a shock when, mixed in among the refuse that had arrived, they found a human skull and jaw bone. Since bags came from all over Tokyo, there was no telling who the bones had belonged to, so they had to check dental records.

Soon after, they identified the skull as 67-year-old Hideo Murai of Kita, Tokyo. This was corroborated by a bank card with Murai’s name on it that was also found among the trash in the bag with his skull. Naturally, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the matter and on 29 June arrested the deceased’s older brother, 68-year-old Shoichi Murai, on charges of illegal disposal of human remains. ...

Murai denies the charges, however, and claims that he found the bones in his brother’s room but assumed they were replicas. The brothers were said to have shared the same house in Kita, with Shoichi living on the first floor and Hideo living on the second. Shoichi claims that he had not spoken to his younger brother since at least March of 2017, and was cleaning the room in order to sell it when he found the skull. He added, “I wondered if he was hospitalized somewhere.”

Police searched Hideo’s residence and found the rest of his skeletonized body lying on a bed. According to an autopsy, at least several months had passed since his death, but he was confirmed to have been alive in 2017 when Shoichi claims to have last interacted with him.

The authorities are also looking into a possible cause of death, but reports so far say that there are no signs of violence. There are still dozens of questions surrounding this incident though, most which were asked in online comments about the news. ...

Sadly, cases where people have left deceased relatives bodies secretly hidden in order to continue collecting pensions or other benefits are not unheard of. However, that also seems like something the police would be able to look into rather quickly, but they haven’t reported anything about pension or welfare payments being misappropriated so far.

On the other hand, people not realizing a sibling they lived with had been dead in the house for years, is also not without precedent. In the end, it’ll be up to the police to untangle this mess and determine if Shoichi needs to be held accountable or was just very confused. ...
FULL STORY: https://soranews24.com/2022/07/05/t...-brothers-skull-out-for-recycling-collection/
 
How can someone be so unobservant?
To find the skull and not see the rest of the remains?
Also... why didn't he file a missing person report with the police when his brother went missing?
 
How can someone be so unobservant? ...

This isn't the only recent such case from Japan. In August 2020 a woman who shared a small house with two brothers decided to clear out and use her older brother's room. The older brother hadn't been seen since 2015, and he'd been reported as missing in 2016. She found human bones and contacted the police. Authorities were initially inclined to suspect the bones were those of the missing older brother. However, I can't locate any later updates on this story.
Woman finds skeleton, possibly of her missing brother, while cleaning her house

Up until a few years ago, Sumio Suenaga lived in a house in the town of Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture, with his younger sister and brother. However, according to the younger Suenaga siblings, their older brother, who was 66 years old at the time, went missing in 2015.

Perhaps hoping he’d turn up sooner or later, the younger siblings waited until 2016 to reported Sumio’s disappearance to the police, but there still had been no sign of him. Five years seems plenty long enough to wait, and so last weekend Sumio’s younger sister, who’s now 69, decided she’d like to use her older brother’s room, but realized she’d need to clean it up first.

As you might expect for a bedroom that’s gone unattended to for five years, there was plenty of straightening up to do. However, the sister didn’t get too far before discovering an unclothed skeletonized body. “I found something that I think are human bones,” she informed the police, and when officers arrived on the scene they confirmed that the corpse was indeed human. ...
FULL STORY: https://soranews24.com/2020/08/17/j...her-missing-brother-while-cleaning-her-house/
 
One set of human remains recovered from the shrinking Lake Mead this summer has been identified as a drowning victim from 2002. Two other sets are currently being investigated. One set is being analyzed to determine whether it represents a single victim or multiple victims.
Human remains found in receding Lake Mead identified as man who reportedly drowned two decades ago, officials say

(CNN)Human remains found at Lake Mead more than three months ago have been identified as Thomas Erndt, who is believed to have died by drowning two decades ago, authorities in Nevada said Wednesday.

Erndt's remains, found in the lake's Callville Bay area on May 7, were identified through investigative information, DNA analysis and reports of the original incident, according to a news release from the Clark County Office of Communications & Strategy.

The 42-year-old from Las Vegas reportedly drowned August 2, 2002, authorities said, though the official cause and manner of death were undetermined Wednesday. ...

Erndt's remains are one of at least three sets of human remains discovered since May at the lake, where water levels have been plummeting to unprecedented lows ...

The other remains found include a body in a corroding barrel with a gunshot wound, officials said previously. That case is being investigated as a homicide. Those remains, dubbed Hemenway Harbor Doe by the coroner's office, belonged to someone who died in the mid-'70s to early '80s, according to police.

Most recently, authorities recovered partial human remains at Lake Mead's Boulder Swim Beach in mid-August. It was the third time officials have found remains in that area, though it's unclear whether the three discoveries at Boulder Swim Beach are all from one person or separate individuals. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/25/us/lake-mead-human-remains-identified/index.html
 
Finally laid to rest.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;


A London-born WW2 pilot has been buried, 78 years after he was killed in action.

Flt Sgt William Robert Stephen Hurrell, from East Ham, died when his RAF Typhoon was hit by an enemy plane over Arnhem in September 1944. His remains were discovered in 2019 after Dutch authorities excavated the crash site on farmland near the village of Eefde, Lochem in the Netherlands. He was buried at Jonkerbos War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

The pilot was flying in a formation of six aircraft on an armed reconnaissance north of Arnhem when they were attacked by up to 60 enemy fighter planes.

The service was attended by members of Flt Sgt Hurrell's family, who had travelled from Australia, representatives of the RAF, the British Embassy in the Netherlands, and dignitaries from the municipality of Lochem.

His great niece Brydie Hurrell, said: "We grew up knowing that Bill was shot down at the end of the war and that his parents had never found him. We knew he was in the Netherlands - we just weren't sure where exactly.

"When we heard about the salvage project we were over the moon. Representing the rest of my family back home means a lot.
"Bill's parents and his brother, my grandfather, died never knowing where he was, but we now have closure for them and for ourselves."

The RAF's Queen's Colour Squadron (QCS) remove the Union Flag from Flt Sgt Hurrell's coffin before laying him to rest
IMAGE SOURCE,MOD Image caption, The RAF's Queen's Colour Squadron remove the Union Flag from Flt Sgt Hurrell's coffin before laying him to rest

Tracey Bowers, of the Ministry of Defence, said: "It has been an absolute privilege to arrange this ceremony for Flt Sgt William Hurrell and I am grateful for the help given by the community of Lochem. I am honoured to stand alongside his military and blood family to pay him this final tribute."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-63102261
 
I was reading a short article recently on a Ukrainian whose job is to locate and recover bodies of soldiers lost in the conflict and he said that when he is searching in woodland or difficult places he often feels that the dead are calling to him and direct him subconciously to where they are located.
 
I'd be surprised if this story hasn't made it onto the forum somewhere, but I can’t find a mention just now - apologies for any repetition.

It’s really a bit odd:

A MAN'S body has been discovered 'hidden under a blanket' on the roof of a three-storey home.
Emergency services rushed to the terraced house and cordoned off the surrounding streets, leaving neighbours shocked by the grim find...

Full story here. (Yes, I know, The Sun – but the report has some good images of the locus).

In no particular order:

Climbing out of a Velux type window onto a sloping roof is not an easy feat. The ones hinged in the middle are not designed for access - you have to pull yourself through the bottom half headfirst and kind of crawl downwards onto the skin of the roof before righting yourself, you can't just step out. (I know - I've done it.)

If the body was wrapped in a blanket then the individual clearly went up there with a certain level of preparation (i.e. they took a blanket) - but preparation for what? I suppose that there's just a possibility that the blanket was placed by the emergency services during the process of bringing the body down, and this is the product of misreporting – but the claim has not been revised. (I'm pretty sure the yellow sheet in the photographs is actually not the 'blanket' he was found in, but an element of the recovery process - although at least one report does suggest he was found in a yellow blanket.)

I'd guess the guy crawled out of the Velux, walked/crawled up the seam of the lead flashing running along the valley bottom, and stepped or jumped across to the top side of the stack. But why? (The image of the body lying on the lower slope of the roof seems to have been taken during the later stages of the recovery process, and I think some reports are mistakenly suggesting that this is where he was found. That would be ten times odder. I'm assuming the blurred out section of the first photo on the above report indicates the body, and where it was initially located.)

I can imagine an experienced if somewhat radge roofer (is there any other type?) doing such a thing to check out a problem with his chimney - but why would they take a blanket? And if they then got into difficulties, wouldn’t they shout for help?

It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that the all too real-life MacGuffins of mental health and self harm are going to play a part – but still, it’s really quite an odd process to have gone through.
 
Sad story. People do strange things sometimes. The story says "no suspicious circumstances" which would normally mean suicide or natural causes such as a heart attack. Maybe he wanted to see the stars?
 
They're still discovering human remains in the drought-lowered Lake Mead reservoir.
Diver finds more human remains in Lake Mead, marking at least the sixth discovery this year

After a diver found what appeared to be a human bone in Lake Mead, the park searched the area and uncovered more human remains, the National Park Service confirmed Wednesday.

The diver, who is a private business operator at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, found the bone in the Callville Bay area of Lake Mead on October 17, according to park spokesperson Stefani Dawn. The next day, a park dive team searched the area and “confirmed the finding of human skeletal remains,” Dawn said.

The finding marks at least the sixth time human remains have been uncovered at the lake this year, many due to the lake’s dropping water levels from prolonged drought. Some of the discoveries have only been partial sets, so it is unclear how many people’s remains have been found. ...
FULL STORY: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/26/us/lake-mead-human-remains-diver-discovery-callville/index.html
 
Glaciers continue to disgorge corpses.

Human remains found on a glacier close to Switzerland's famous Matterhorn have been confirmed to be the body of a German climber missing since 1986.

The discovery is the latest in a number of long held secrets that the Alpine glaciers, now rapidly shrinking due to climate change, have revealed.
The body was discovered earlier this month by climbers crossing the Theodul glacier above Zermatt. They noticed a hiking boot and crampons emerging from the ice.

DNA analysis showed the body to be that of a German climber, who disappeared 37 years ago. A huge search and rescue operation at the time failed to find any trace of him. Police did not name the climber but said he was aged 38 when he went missing during a hike.

The Theodul glacier, like glaciers across the Alps, has shown a marked retreat in the last few years. It is part of Zermatt's famous year round ski region, the highest in Europe. But the alpine ice fields are especially sensitive to global warming. Until the 1980s the Theodul was still connected to its neighbour - the Gorner glacier - but the two have now split apart.

Almost every summer, the melting ice reveals something, or someone, lost for decades. Last year the wreckage of a plane that crashed in 1968 emerged from the Aletsch glacier.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66334788
 
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