The bones recovered form a shed in Missoula that were being investigated as possibly belong to three missing children from Michigan, have now been confirmed as ‘historical’.

Missoula County Undersheriff Rich Maricelli said testing has proved the bones are at least 99 years old.

“We recently received some information from the University of North Texas,” said Maricelli. “They did a pretty comprehensive report back from the screening and testing that they did on the specimens that were sent down to them late last year. They have been determined to be ‘historical’ and ‘archaeological’ in origin, which means basically, that they’re at least 99 years old or older. We can confirm from that report that they are not in any way, shape or form related to those missing children from Michigan. There was another speculation that they might be from a missing child in Washington State which has now been confirmed that they are not.”

The bones were recovered from a box inside a shed at an abandoned Missoula house.

The coroner’s office has been working closely with the City of Missoula Police Detectives, pathologists from the Montana State Crime Lab, the Anthropology Department at the University of Montana and the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.

Due to the limited amount of bone specimens, additional information relating to the sex, stature or ancestry of the three remains is inconclusive. Any further DNA testing results would not be available for another six to eight months.

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