Four teenagers playing in a steep, wooded ravine on Auburn’s West Hill Tuesday afternoon called police after spotting something under a log and finding a moss-covered human skull.
Once the Auburn Police Department confirmed that the remains were human, it turned the investigation over to the more-resource-rich King County Sheriff’s Office.
King County Sgt. Anthony McNabb, who was at the site Wednesday morning with crime scene investigators in the 6300 block of South 296th, explained what they found.
“Yesterday, we found the skull and the maxilla, that is, the upper jaw,” McNabb said. “It was a complete skull. We also found about five vertebrae, which are most likely human. The skull was lying at the surface level with trash on top of it. We can’t tell how long it has been there, a couple years at least.”
Investigators also found several long bones. They were unable, however, to determine the sex of the victim or the manner or cause of death, McNabb said.
“We don’t know if what we found was a pelvic (bone),” McNabb said. “It could have been a scapula. All the bones we picked up have been run to the Medical Examiner’s Office.”
There is no telling how long it will take the examiner to make a positive identification, or if one will even be possible, authorities said.
“It depends,” McNabb said. “If it’s a reported missing person, and we have their dental records on file, it could be an hour. It could also be much longer. Our anthropologist down there who does this is sort of thing is on vacation this week.”
Eight detectives from the King County Major Crimes Unit worked the scene Wednesday, and two members of King County’s Major Accident Response and Reconstruction Unit (MARR) plotted the site. The team included one photographer, two Auburn detectives and searchers from the police agencies.
McNabb commented on the site.
“You know where you see those road signs that say ‘Steep grade 10 percent?’ Well, they don’t look anything like this. It’s extremely steep on the way down there.”
Police closed the road at 37th Street Northwest at West Valley Highway up the hill to 65th Avenue and kept it closed until shortly before 2 p.m. Wednesday, when the team finished its work.
King County Police Sgt. John Urquhart said in a press release that the skull has not yet been linked to any particular crime or series of crimes.
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