Bones could solve mysterious deaths

Whether eight skeletons are the work of a killer is up to forensic detectives.

FORT MYERS - Discarded like trash, eight bodies went unnoticed for years in a thicket of trees and scrub on the edge of downtown.

When they were discovered in March, nothing remained but bones. Six months later, authorities still know precious little about the skeletons, other than they were white men between the ages of 18 and 49 and died as far back as 1980. Detectives say their best hope for solving the case now rests with a forensic sculptor who will try to reconstruct their faces.

Authorities delivered the eight skulls to Sharon Long last month in hopes that her work will help determine their identities. Long, of Laramie, Wyo., has made busts for the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution, helped reconstruct the faces of mummies and re-created faces of some of the first settlers at Jamestown.

No flesh remained on the skeletons, which appeared to have been chewed on by animals. There were no clothes or personal items, either.

Investigators have weighed a number of theories, including whether the skeletons could be the work of a serial killer or remains dumped by a mortician.

A forensics lab in Texas is working to extract DNA from the bones, but until detectives identify the remains, there's no trail to follow. Once Long finishes, police plan to release the images nationwide hoping that someone recognizes them.

Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that the skeletons are victims of Daniel Conahan, who was sentenced to death in 1999 for the strangulation of a drifter.

[Last modified September 12, 2007, 00:25:13]