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Oxford Eagle, August 2,
1998
Oxford
Youths Discover Bone
By Joe Pye
Weed
Four Oxford kids were
apprehended by University Police late yesterday
when they discovered what appeared to be a human
femur bone amid construction in the "Y" Building on
the west end of the Grove.
"We were just playing
around in the abandoned building when I saw a
secret chamber in the floor," said 11-year-old Zach
Burgess. "It was dark and deep, so I reached down
in there and fished out somebody's leg bone." "The
end looked like it had been sawed off," said
13-year-old Rachel McGowan. Also on the scene were
12 year olds Melody Cheever and Hunter McGowan,
Rachel's brother.
Rachel and Hunter are the
children of Ole Miss anthropology professor Thomas
McGowan, who was asked about the finding. "It's
hard to tell, at this point, where the bone came
from," McGowan said. "We'll have to perform carbon
dating tests on the bone to determine its age. It
could be anyone's from a Choctaw indian to a
Confederate soldier. It could be that this leg came
from a victim of some heinous crime. We just don't
know."
University Police Chief
Carl Fisk hasn't ruled out the possibility that the
bone was planted on the construction site as a
hoax. "We checked with the foreman, and neither he
nor any of his men saw the bone yesterday. There's
really no sense in speculating at this
time."
When approached about the
news of the bones, the chancellor's office
responded, "Ole Miss is very proud of our past, and
any link that we can find to reinforce our place in
history, we are more than happy to examine." The
results from the testing should be released by Dr.
McGowan later this week.
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Investigation Files 
