Springfield anthropologist: Skeleton that of Asian male

May 09, 2008 09:49 pm

— By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
An anthropologist from Missouri State University determined Friday that a skeleton discovered this week in Newton County is that of a male.
“Her opinion is that the skeletal remains are those of an Asian male, possibly around 40 (years old),” Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said.
The anthropologist needs to do more testing to firm up her opinion and to try to pinpoint an approximate date of death for the unidentified homicide victim, he said. A bullet was found in the decomposed brain tissue inside the skull of the remains, supporting the Newton County Sheriff’s Department officials’ belief they have a homicide investigation in progress.
The sheriff said the university anthropologist in Springfield took numerous measurements of the remains Friday morning as well as tissue and bone samples for study. More may be known about the victim as early as next week, he said.
The remains were found in a field along Raven Road just north of Highway 86, south of Granby. They were discovered about 20 feet off the roadway, along with various items of clothing believed to have belonged to the victim and a gold necklace with an oval pendant around the neck.
The set-stone pendant has an inscription on the back in what appeared to investigators to be a foreign language. The inscription has been shown to language instructors at Missouri Southern State University in an effort to identify the language and the meaning of the inscription.
Copeland declined to say if those instructors had identified the language as any particular Asian tongue.
Items of clothing recovered from the area include a pair of Levi’s jeans, a pullover-type shirt thought to have been gray in color, a black jacket or coat bearing the Claiborne brand label, and one Doc Marten brand shoe.
The sheriff has said that the body appeared to him to have been decomposing for about four to six months. But investigators are hoping to get a more expert estimation of the date of death from the anthropologist or a forensic pathologist in Springfield after tests are completed.