Friday, Jun. 22, 2001

Missing ancient bones discovered

By Mike Lee Herald staff writer

Bones reported missing from the Kennewick Man skeleton three years ago appear to have turned up at the Benton County Sheriff's Office.

The Thursday discovery of the bones thought to be from the ancient remains may resolve a long-standing mystery once investigated by the FBI.

County Coroner Floyd Johnson came across a "regular cardboard box" Thursday morning that may contain the high-profile bones. He said he was sorting through an evidence locker at the justice center in Kennewick.

"It is speculated they are the missing bones," said Sheriff Larry Taylor. "We can't associate them with anything else."

"I was surprised," said Johnson, the longtime coroner.

"I wanted to inspect it and see what I might have stored in there," he said.

What he found was a container a bit larger than a shoe box that he recognized from the Kennewick Man case. The bones, discovered in July 1996, were cloistered briefly at the sheriff's department before they were taken to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland and then to the Burke Museum in Seattle, where they remain.

Johnson did not want to say more about the case or the contents of the box until he had talked with the FBI and looked more closely at the remains, which are under lock at the coroner's office.

"We don't even know if they are related (to Kennewick Man) until they are inspected," he said.

"If they are," said Taylor, sounding hopeful to be rid of the case, "the federal government can deal with them as the courts deem appropriate."

The Richland FBI office was not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.

The potential loss to science upset scientists suing for the right to study the remains. Tribal leaders were equally enraged.

"We as tribes do not want the bones separated from the skeleton," said Marla Big Boy, attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in late 1998.

The missing bones sparked an FBI investigation that went on for at least a year as the lawsuit over ownership of the 9,200-year-old remains ground through federal court.

Jim Chatters, a Richland archaeologist who assisted Johnson with Kennewick Man from the start, writes in his newly released book about the upheaval that followed the Corps' announcement about the missing bones. He said he and Johnson were considered by the FBI as the "only suspects."

Chatters said he was able to dispel rumors about his involvement and that Johnson, a former major in the sheriff's department and "a man with no motive" for taking parts of the skeleton, "was above reproach."

Exactly how the bones were overlooked for so long remains unclear, but the mix-up may be linked to an old sheriff's department policy that did not mandate that evidence held by the coroner be tagged with a sheriff's department case number.

Taylor took office in 1999 and changed department policy for evidence handling once he learned about the Kennewick Man mix-up. Now, he said, even coroner's evidence is tagged with a sheriff's case number.

Still, there's confusion about why annual inspections of the evidence lockers didn't turn up the bones.

"We physically touch and inspect every item once a year, and we didn't come across it," Taylor said. "Why? Well, I really can't answer that."