TULSA, Okla. — Crew members, working on the 1921 Race Massacre Graves investigation, updated the media on their latest progress.
Crews recently discovered 42, previously unknown, graves. Among those, three sets of human remains were exhumed. Forensic pathologists found a bullet lodged within one set.
WATCH: BULLET FOUND IN REMAINS: Investigators update work at graves site
“It’s sufficiently large, less oxidized than the ones we’ve seen in the past, and it was recovered from his lower rib cage area,” Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, the lead forensic pathologist, said.
READ MORE ON STUBBLEFIELD >>> Stubblefield is a forensic investigator of national renown
It’s the seventh time investigators have found a bullet in someone’s remains. The remains with the bullet were positively identified as male. Not much else is yet known.
A male infant and another adult, of an undetermined gender, were found too. Forensic investigators are in the extremely early stages of investigating those remains.
Brenda Nails-Alford is a descendant of the massacre. She has been assisting the investigators.
“I’m just so very thankful to be able to help out wherever I can and just to be here to assist,” Nails-Alford said, “I’m just so very grateful to the City of Tulsa and our team for doing this hard work.”
As for the human remains with the bullet, investigators cannot yet definitively say if the bullet killed the man, or if he was a victim of the race massacre.
“There was something going on with his health,” Stubblefield said.
Stubblefield suspects the bullet mortally wounded the man, but is not ready to say so definitively.
“Until we get their names and histories, they’re all possibles. And yes, they can be injured without affecting bone, but bone is all we have. So we have to just tell the stories we have and hopefully we’ll catch the other CL Daniel. Maybe we’ll get everyone returned to history,” Stubblefield said.
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