Partial human skull dredged up from Red River in Miller County
By: Nancy Cook
Updated: October 24, 2012
The upper portion of a human skull was dredged up Tuesday by the Garland City Sand and Gravel Co., according to Miller County Chief Deputy Duke Schofield.
Schofield said an employee from the sand & Gravel Company called and said what appeared to be a human skull was found when the company was sifting sand removed from a depth of 10-to12-feet of water in the Red River.
The skull was "from the eye sockets up," he said, and appeared to "have been in the water a long time." He added that there did not appear to be any kind of trauma to the skull.
Schofield said the skull is being sent to the Arkansas Crime Lab, where he's hoping forensic scientists can ascertain such things as the gender, race and approximate age of the skull. After the skull was found, Schofield said the sheriff's department had done some research on unsolved drowning reports in that area of the Red River for several years back.
"If they can get the DNA from the skull, we might be able to match it to families (descendents) and identify it that way."
