Murder hunt after boy finds skull as he plays football
A MURDER investigation has been launched after a boy of 13 found a buried skull while playing football in his grandparents’ garden.
Jack Grant was having a kickabout with two friends when the ball became lodged on rubble from a cleared hedgerow marking the edge of the farmhouse plot.
As he bent to retrieve the ball, Jack saw the skull staring back at him.
He picked it up and raced into the house to show his grandmother Gillian Medlam, 59.
She initially thought it might belong to a dog or other animal.
A South Yorkshire Police spokesman yesterday confirmed the discovery has sparked a murder investigation.
Scraped
Officers await the result of DNA testing to confirm the person’s identity.
The skull and around half-adozen bones were found in the small hamlet of Swaithe, near Barnsley.
A forensic archaeologist and a specialist criminal anthropologist examined the skeletal remains at the scene before they were removed last night.
A full post-mortem examination is due to take place today.
Corn farmer Charles Medlam, 64, revealed how in recent months he has been cutting back the hedgerow on agricultural land he manages home.
He said: “I’ve been clearing the hedgerow since last year. I cut it by six feet in October and scraped the ground. Then on Sunday, at about 2pm, my grandson Jack was playing football with two pals and he found a skull.
“I’d come home for a sandwich and he brought the skull into the house. My wife thought it was dog’s skull but I knew it wasn’t. I said, ‘that’s human’ and told her to phone the police.”
Detective Chief Inspector Martin Tate said yesterday that early tests had shown the skull is male and the death appeared to have been within the last 20 years.
He said they were also trying to establish if the bones had been buried and been disturbed by Mr Medlam’s tractor or if they had adjacent to his been hidden beneath the hedge more recently.
He said: “This is not historic, we believe the death was in the last 20 years.
“We have carbon dating to do and the process will be lengthy.
“We are treating it as a murder inquiry. We have got people who are missing in the local area and that is clearly one of our key lines on inquiry.
“The skull was not entirely complete. There have been around half a dozen bones found subsequently although some of these will be animal bones, given the nature of the land.”
“We will look at all our records going back years and decades to try and work out who it is.
“We will have a methodical approach and hope to get a DNA profile from the bones to compare with our records.”