Police: Bones found in Clinton County park aren’t recent

By JIM RUNKLE jrunkle@lockhaven.com
BELLEFONTE — State police say they are certain the human bones found last week at Bald Eagle State Park are not connected to any of the “missing persons” investigations that have occurred in the area over the last 20 years.

Preliminary investigations suggest the bones are at least 20 years old and perhaps older, Cpl. Joseph Leiper of the Rockview barracks, said Monday morning.

The age likely would rule out any connection to missing person cases such as Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar or Kathy Dolan Heckel, a Mill Hall woman who was last seen on July 14, 1991, as she was leaving Hammermill Paper Co.

Leiper also said there has been some speculation that the bones might have been left behind when the old Schenck Cemetery was moved and the Foster Joseph Sayers Dam was built near Howard in the 1960s to create the recreational lake and flood control system.

‘‘That’s also unlikely,” he said. “I would believe they were very thorough in transferring those remains, because of the controversy that occurred at the time,” he said.

‘‘The anthropologist will be better able to tell us several months from now where they originated, but for now, we just don’t know ... We are very confident, however, that it’s not one of those missing people,” he said.

The bones were found last Wednesday afternoon in the beach area by a passer-by who notified authorities, police said.

The area where the bones were found is under water most of the year, police said. The water levels are drawn down during winter as part of the Army Corps of Engineers flood control system.