Museum’s macabre remains buried
HUMAN remains belonging to historic murder victims have been buried in Wellington by police.
The remains of murder and accident victims used for training by detectives of the 1920s and 30s were among the macabre backroom collection held by the New Zealand Police Museum.
Changing attitudes and law surrounding handling human remains led police to the conclusion that maintaining the collection was unethical.
They set about trying to find out who the body parts – which included skin, hair, and bone fragments of victims – belonged to and revealed their plan to lay them to rest this June.
The victims included foetuses aborted by notorious ‘‘baby farmer’’ Daniel Cooper.
Seven of the sets of adult victims’ remains could not be identified. The top of a skull was all that was left of one.
Police Museum director Rowan Carroll spent three years researching newspaper archives and examining official records in her efforts to return the remains to the victims’ largely unaware descendants.
Some of the known victims’ parts were interred in their original gravesites around the country. Three murder victims’ names remained withheld as the families considered their options for memorials, Carroll said.
Yesterday, police invited the public to a ceremony at Makara Cemetery for the unusual funeral.
All remains of the seven unidentified adult victims had been cremated earlier. They were interred together.
Four infanticide victims’ remains and 20 aborted foetuses were interred in a mass grave at Makara’s children’s cemetery.
Senior Constable Stu Rowe, Constable Jason Mokrzecki, Senior Constable Greg Thomas and Sergeant Graeme Bergh formed a guard of honour bearing the victims’ remains.
Padre David Dell read the service as the remains were farewelled many decades after death, some all together, in tiny wooden boxes.