A dog discovered what appeared to be a human skull near Winklers Creek in south Boone on Friday, Oct. 2, around 2:49 p.m., in an area right next to the Town of Boone's water intake, according to police. The find has launched a joint investigation by local law enforcement and triggered a mandatory review by North Carolina's chief medical examiner.
The Boone Police Department said the skull turned up in the area adjacent to the municipal water intake, according to WXII. The precise location sits near where Winklers Creek flows through the southern part of town, close to infrastructure tied to Boone's municipal water supply, as detailed by WCNC. That intake serves as an emergency and backup raw water source for the town, tied to a municipal reservoir estimated to hold 60 million gallons, with Boone otherwise relying on the New River for its day-to-day drinking water supply.
Four days after the initial discovery, officers with the Boone Police Department and deputies with the Watauga County Sheriff's Office returned to the site on Tuesday to conduct a more thorough search. The follow-up effort turned up no additional human remains, the station's report indicates. Investigators have sent the recovered remains to the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which will handle examination and identification.
Why the Medical Examiner Takes Over From Here
Under North Carolina General Statutes § 130A-383, local authorities are required to report unexpected or suspicious human remains to a medical examiner, which is why jurisdiction over the skull now rests with the state's centralized medicolegal system, per the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. That office frequently works alongside university forensic anthropologists, including the NC State Human Identification and Forensic Analysis Lab, to build biological profiles and pursue DNA evidence when skeletal remains lack soft tissue, according to research published on PMC. Those techniques can include 3D skull modeling and investigative genetic genealogy, tools increasingly used to aid missing-person identifications.
Search for Missing Student Continues
Boone police searched for James “Martin” Roberts and followed leads after the 19-year-old, who was attending Caldwell Community College, disappeared from Boone on April 21, 2016, according to MissingKids.org. The search for Roberts continues.
For now, the case remains a joint effort between the Boone Police Department and the Watauga County Sheriff's Office. Police say the investigation is ongoing while the medical examiner's office works to determine who the remains belonged to.
