What investigators now know about skeletal remains found on a Benton County farm

Investigators believe skeletal remains found on a farm north of Prosser this week came from just one person buried on the rural Benton County property.

Sheriff’s deputies spent 12 hours searching the undeveloped area next to a farm field and recovered more scattered bones, Coroner Bill Leach told the Tri-City Herald.

The skeletal remains were discovered Tuesday afternoon on a plot about half a mile from McCreadie Road. The area is north of the rural farming community off Interstate 82 in the Lower Yakima Valley.

While investigators recovered more bones, Leach said they haven’t been able to determine more about the person’s gender, ethnicity, how they died or how long ago they died.

They have figured out the person was buried and that animals disturbed the grave.

Investigators do not believe it’s a tribal burial location.

At this point, many of the bones remain encased in dirt, and the coroner’s office is trying to determine whether to have a local forensic pathologist remove the soil or to send it off to the state forensic anthropologist in King County to examine.

Either way, the bones will end up in the hands of the state’s forensic anthropologist, who may be able to help identify the person. It’s not clear how long that could take.

A pathologist will examine the bones to see if there are signs of how the person died.

Trying to identify the person is going to be a challenging task, Leach said. They hope the dirt is hiding some clues.

While investigators can try to match the person’s dental records, they need a starting point because they can’t look through millions of possible dental records.

A DNA search is another possibility, but in that case, they would still need a sample in a database to compare it to.

The plan for identifying the person should be clearer in the next week, Leach said.

This story was originally published April 18, 2024 at 5:48 PM.