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Man finds remains, brings skull to Youngstown police
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police and the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office are trying to determine the identity of human remains found about 10 p.m. Friday on the city’s North Side.
Youngstown Police Lt. Doug Bobovnyik of the Detective Bureau said a man who used to live on Wydesteel Avenue was walking through the vacant lot of his old home when he discovered the remains next to a fence.
The man took the skull to the police station, and detectives and police went to the site Friday evening, Bobovnyik said. They returned to the site at daylight Saturday, along with Dr. Joseph Ohr of the coroner’s office, to excavate the site.
Bobovnyik said the body appears to be that of a black male between 19 and 35 years old and between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 inches.
A jacket, which had bones beside and in it, was discovered with the body.
The remains were found in an area of the street where several houses have been torn down recently, Bobovnyik said. The street is off Logan Avenue, next to the old General Fireproofing plant.
There was no obvious sign of how the man died, Bobovnyik said. The coroner will have to examine the body to see if a cause of death can be determined, he said.
“There is nothing to indicate a cause of death at this point and time,” Bobovnyik said.
Investigators believe the body had been there for at least a year, he said.
Detectives are going through missing persons reports to see if they can find a lead on who the person might be.
Anyone with information can call the detective bureau at 330-742-8911 or the department’s non-emergency number at 330 -742-8900.