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Officials investigate origin of remains
©Associated Press
August 26, 2002
FORT PIERCE -- Federal and local authorities are investigating the origin of human remains and a body found miles apart in the waters off Florida's east coast, officials said Sunday.
The Coast Guard found the remains of three bodies Friday in the waters about 20 miles from Fort Pierce, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Tony Russell said.
A body was found in the waters off Cape Canaveral Saturday, Russell said.
Medical examiners in Brevard and Martin counties took the remains in an effort to identify them. It has been determined that the remains of one of the dead belonged to a female, Russell said.
"We have no way to correlate right now where these remains may have come from," Russell said. "We have multiple search and rescue cases every day."
Russell said the Coast Guard was searching Sunday for one overdue vessel that may have come from Cuba with migrants aboard, but stressed that it was too early to know whether the discovery of the remains was connected to the fate of those aboard.
The U.S. Border Patrol was investigating whether the remains were from Cubans smuggled into this country, said Keith Roberts, a Border Patrol spokesman.
"We are pooling our resources to see if it is one of those types of cases," Roberts said. "We've even gone as far as making contact with several individuals who believe that they have family members missing."
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