State officials say they are ending an investigation into a piece of a human skull found in the Eli Wallace Horse Cemetery in Littleton last summer because it doesn’t appear there has been any crime.
In a news release today state officials said Bonnie Stinchfield of Littleton admitted she buried the bone last summer.
“She said that her husband had been in possession of the piece of bone since at least 1988. He had received the bone from another man who was moving and didn’t want it anymore,” the release said.
“Mrs. Stinchfield understood that the man who had given the bone to her husband had had the bone for some time, but she did not know the source or history of the bone. After her husband died in November of 2010, Mrs. Stinchfield said that she did not know what to do with the bone, so she decided to bury it in the horse cemetery.”
Dr. Marcella H. Sorg, a Forensic Anthropologist in Maine, examined the skull at the request of New Hampshire officials.
She concluded it was probably from an African-American male between 25 and 45 years-old and there was no sign of trauma “inflicted at the time of death.” It also appeared the skull had been “professionally cleaned, possibly as a medical specimen.”
The bone will remain at the lab in Maine.
