Remains found in search for 1921 Tulsa race massacre victims

At least 10 bodies were found Wednesday in an unmarked mass grave at a Tulsa, Okla., cemetery where investigators are searching for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Oklahoma’s state archaeologist said.

“What we were finding was an indication that we were inside a large area … a large hole that had been excavated and into which several individuals had been placed and buried in that location. This constitutes a mass grave,” state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said.

Investigators found 10 wooden coffins containing what was initially presumed to be one person in each, Stackelbeck said. She said further examination of the coffins and remains, which have not been removed, was needed.

“Those skeletal remains are not in great condition,” Stackelbeck said. “They’re not the worst condition we have seen … but they’re not the best.”

Combined with one set of remains found nearby on Tuesday, there have now been at least 11 bodies discovered, according to Stackelbeck.

University of Florida forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubble

field, a descendent of a massacre survivor who is assisting in the search, said patience is needed before anyone can expect to know the identities of the remains or the cause of deaths.

“We will need considerable time to investigate them because the preservation, teeth have been showing up OK, but non-dental structures“have deteriorated, Stubblefield said.

Stackelbeck said it was too

early to say definitely that the remains are victims of the massacre, even though they were found near an area known as the “Original 18,” where funeral home records indicate massacre victims were buried.

Mike Simons / Associated Press The Rev. Robert Turner, with Vernon A.M.E Church, prays as crews work on a second test excavation and core sampling on Tuesday as the search for remains at Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, Okla., from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre continues.