Mystery solved.

The mystery of human bones found in a backyard in York has been solved with the help of Prof. Jack Levisky and a few of his students.

In July, homeowners living on Tioga Street in York discovered what they thought were four human bones (most likely remains of a teenager) in their yard. 

The homeowners turned the bones over to police, who then turned the bones over the Barry Bloss, York County Coroner. Bloss contacted Levisky, an anthropology/archaeology professor, who verified that they were human bones.

Was it a homicide? Was it a natural death?

Those are just some of the questions Levisky and his students were looking to determine when they returned to Tioga Street on Thursday, Sept. 3, for an archaeological dig. During the dig they found more remains in the same location.

On the morning of Friday, Sept. 4, Levisky received a phone call from the York County Heritage Trust. After reading an article about the dig that appeared in the York Daily Record, they determined that the area was, in fact, an old burial ground.

Armed with that knowledge, the coroner’s office and Levisky agreed that it was safe to assume that the remains belonged to a burial prior to the 1940s – not a homicide or a crime scene. 

The remains will now receive a proper burial. 

Pictured at the dig (from l to r): Amanda Stambaugh ’10 (Mount Wolf, Pa.), Professor Levisky, Joshua Lawrence ’10 (Abbottstown, Pa.) and Professor Elizabeth Hodgson.