Cheneyville, LA: Confirmed, Bones are from a cemetery

The crew called the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office. By Saturday morning, detectives were in the field working on what appeared to be a crime scene.

“We were actually digging,” said Major Jasper Bay with RPSO. “And, we already had parts of the skeleton exposed. So, we were digging to preserve that particular skeleton.”

By initial accounts, it looked suspicious.

“From looking at it from my observation, we though it was just a dump site where someone dumped a body,” said Cheneyville Mayor Reginald Allen.

But then, detectives made another find – another body buried in the ditch.

“What we realized is that there’s a whole grave here or there’s a cemetery here of bodies,” said Major Bay. “And, the further we looked, the more evidence that we found of that. So, it was determined that this is a grave yard.”

Unmarked graves in an unknown cemetery. Now, the bones will be sent off to an LSU lab for testing.

And as detectives await results, Ryan says this might be the most interesting find in Cheneyville that he can remember.

“Especially here in Cheneyville,” he said. “Hardly ever find anything.”

According to detectives and to the mayor, the cemetery might be an old Civil War or slave plot. The official answer as to where the bones came from will come in the next few weeks after anthropologists complete testing.

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Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives spent Saturday morning in an irrigation ditch in Cheneyville looking for more bones from remains they found Friday night.

RPSO received a call Friday around 5:30 about possible human skeletal remains on a farm property on Bayou Road.

Deputies say workers on the property discovered it while working in the field.

Detectives say they’re not sure if it’s a man or a woman yet, or how long the remains have been there. So, they called in back-up from a local forensic team.

“What we’re doing right now is excavating the area,” said Major Jasper Bay of RPSO. “We have a forensic team from LSU forensic anthropologists here. Right now we’re just doing a dig and an excavation.”

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