Grisly discovery
Children find body on former steel plant site
Police are maintaining a presence at the scene where human remains were discovered until it’s determined whether the death was the result of foul play.
According to residents of the Vulcan Avenue-area neighbourhood, some local children found the remains on Saturday morning in a wooded area near the end of Ash Street, which borders on a popular trail and on the former location of the Sydney steel plant’s coke ovens.
Staff-Sgt. Reg Hutchings of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service confirmed the remains were human and have been transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Halifax where an autopsy will be performed today.
He added that the major crimes unit is investigating and that officers will remain on the scene until a cause of death is determined.
Hutchings also said the identity of the deceased is still unknown.
“We have nothing at this time due to the decomposition of the remains, which the medical examiner’s office will be investigating,” he said.
Since word of the discovery began to spread on Saturday afternoon, the short deadend street has been busy with police vehicles and even busier with curious onlookers.
Steven McGrath, whose Ash Street house is the closest to where the remains were found, had no idea of the discovery as he was in the air on his way home from England.
“We landed in Toronto and I turned my cellphone on and it went ballistic — the first message said ‘Call your wife right away,’ so I did and then found out what was going on,” said McGrath.
“It’s hard to believe — this is a really quiet street and all the neighbours look out for each other.”
Neighbour Terry Butler said the nearby trail gets a fair amount of foot traffic as it extends east from Victoria Road up to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality waste management facility.
“We also see ATVs, motorbikes and snowmobiles up there, and people also use the area to cross over into Whitney Pier — it gets a lot of use,” he said.
“They said it was a man that they found and he could have been there all winter because there was lots of snow — it couldn’t have been before then because they cleared the woods out there last fall and a body would have been found.”
Another local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said the wooded area by the trail that runs parallel to Vulcan Avenue can also be busy at night with people coming and going at all hours.
Meanwhile, the Cape Breton Regional Police Service is asking the public to contact them with any information about this incident or any other crime at 902-563-5151 or Crime Stoppers at 902-562-8477 and online at www.capebretoncrimestoppers.ca.