Unidentified human remains found in woods near Shell Point in Beaufort Co., police say
Police were on Broad River Drive near Shell Point on Monday night after human remains were found in the woods, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office alert.
The remains were found by a resident close to a marsh and were in an “advanced stage of decomposition,” according to Maj. Bob Bromage with the Sheriff’s Office and the alert. The manner of death and the person’s identity have not been released as of Tuesday morning.
This is at least the second case of human remains found in Beaufort County in the last several months, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. In March, remains that were found in January were identified as Michael Hatfield, a 67-year-old St. Helena man who had gone missing in 2017.
Also, remains that had been found on Hilton Head Island in 2016 were identified in January. That person was from Mexico but his identity was not released pending notification of family, authorities said.
Finding skeletal remains in Beaufort County is not unusual, Bromage said in a January episode of “Lowcountry Law: On Air,” a 30-minute local police segment.
A forensic autopsy should help in determining the identity, cause and manner of death, but “a small percentage of cause and manner of deaths can be undetermined,” Bromage said. The forensic autopsy will take place for the remains found Monday at the Medical University of South Carolina.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 8:53 AM.
