CHICAGO — The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office has determined the remains found in a South Side warehouse Monday are fragments of human skulls.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cina examined the bones Tuesday morning with the help of a forensic anthropologist and said “the remains were likely donated to science long ago.”
The nondescript warehouse building at 200 block of West Root Street once housed a biological specimen facility, according to Becky Schlikerman, the Medical Examiner’s spokeswoman.
Found under a false floor in the building's crawl space Monday morning, according to WGN, the 13 bone fragments included cranial caps, bases of skulls that had been cut into pieces and jawbones.
“The bones had been previously sawed in a manner consistent with dissection for teaching purposes and/or autopsy,” Schlikerman said in a statement. “One non-human bone was also examined.”
The morgue will not issue a death certificate on the skull fragments or examine them any more.
The bones will be buried in a casket the next time there’s a burial for unidentified remains, she said.
The building's owner found the "unusual objects" at the warehouse in the 200 block of West Root Street, said Officer Janel Sedevic, a Chicago Police spokeswoman. He contacted police, who responded at 11:40 a.m. Monday.
The medical examiner's office soon arrived and took the remains for examination to determine if they were human.
Part of an industrial district stacked between the Dan Ryan Expressway and railroad tracks, the 10,000-square-foot building sits across the street from a closed down bar and Root Inn Liquors, where 65-year-old Freddie Powe pondered how human remains could go undetected for so long.
“Somebody’s gotta know something,” said Powe, who frequents the liquor store and knows the building across the street well.
News of the shocking discovery quickly spread through the neighborhood Monday, prompting locals to come up with their own theories about how those "unusual objects" landed in such a nondescript location.
Powe thinks it’s possible somebody broke into the building — vacant and sporting a "For Rent" sign — and planted the skulls there.
“I wouldn’t put anything past this neighborhood,” he said.
Inia Phillips thinks all this skull business is ridiculous.
“Human skulls?” Phillips said from her car, picking up a friend nearby. “What are they investigating? Is that how they’re going to spend our tax dollars?”
The 67-year-old retiree said she spent 35 years in the admitting office of the University of Chicago Medical Center.
“They have been there a long time,” Phillips said.
Just before noon Tuesday, a Chicago Police patrol car remained parked outside the building, keeping watch.
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