bloodrayne
02-19-2004, 04:03 PM
Macabre find shuts down Crockett building site
CROCKETT - Workers lifting the floor of a garage to build a foundation Tuesday morning discovered two human skulls, one of them wearing a hat.
While Contra Costa coroner's officials confirmed that the skulls are human, they could not determine the sex or age of the people they belonged to, how long they were there or how they got there, pending laboratory analysis, said sheriff's Lt. Daniel Terry.
The building at First Avenue and Flora Street where the skulls were found once housed an antique toy store and was sold about two years ago.
Rufus Sjoberg, 24, and another worker had removed some of the garage's wooden floor and begun digging in the dirt shortly after 10 a.m. when Sjoberg felt something hard.
"I thought I hit some clay pots," said Sjoberg, who soon realized differently.
"It kind of threw me off," Sjoberg said. "I wasn't expecting to come up with a handful of skull."
"One of them was inside a beanie," Sjoberg continued. "The other one was just sittin' there, upright, neck down."
The beanie was a blue knit ski-style cap, he said.
Next Sjoberg discovered a jawbone "with all the teeth knocked out. Then I stopped digging."
Sjoberg, a piledriver who does carpentry and fixes cars as well, called the building's co-owner, Shannon Brownlee.
"I thought they were (kidding) me but I went down there anyway and it turns out they weren't (kidding)," said Brownlee, who called authorities.
Terry said investigators would check nationwide for "any law-enforcement cases that have two missing heads" and research the building's occupancy history for clues.
From 1977 to 2002, the building housed Snook's Nook, an antique warehouse specializing in automotive toys. Brownlee and a partner bought the building about three years ago from store owner Tom Snook, who rented space there for another year.
Sjoberg said he used the garage as a workshop for the last year and a half. A neighbor, Scott Lawton, a carpenter and contractor, said he rented the garage for several years before that while Snook owned the building.
"I built a lot of stuff in that shop," Lawton said. "Never thought there would be someone there I didn't know."
Sjoberg said someone had done "sloppy carpentry work," cutting through floor joists and planks, then closing the hole with two plywood covers, nailed side by side.
"These heads, they weren't that old," Sjoberg said. "You could tell by the shape the beanie was in. It was in good shape."
Snook, 79, contacted at home in Benicia about the find, said, "You're kidding me, really? I'll be damned."
"Well, I've never murdered anybody that I know of," Snook said. "I don't know how they got there."
Snook said he had several tenants over the years, including some "rough guys," and once used the garage himself, but is not aware of the floor ever being opened.
Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said the entire building is considered a crime scene. He could not say if the skulls could have been slipped into their position under the garage from outside.
The ground under the garage has eroded away, providing a shelter for stray cats.
CROCKETT - Workers lifting the floor of a garage to build a foundation Tuesday morning discovered two human skulls, one of them wearing a hat.
While Contra Costa coroner's officials confirmed that the skulls are human, they could not determine the sex or age of the people they belonged to, how long they were there or how they got there, pending laboratory analysis, said sheriff's Lt. Daniel Terry.
The building at First Avenue and Flora Street where the skulls were found once housed an antique toy store and was sold about two years ago.
Rufus Sjoberg, 24, and another worker had removed some of the garage's wooden floor and begun digging in the dirt shortly after 10 a.m. when Sjoberg felt something hard.
"I thought I hit some clay pots," said Sjoberg, who soon realized differently.
"It kind of threw me off," Sjoberg said. "I wasn't expecting to come up with a handful of skull."
"One of them was inside a beanie," Sjoberg continued. "The other one was just sittin' there, upright, neck down."
The beanie was a blue knit ski-style cap, he said.
Next Sjoberg discovered a jawbone "with all the teeth knocked out. Then I stopped digging."
Sjoberg, a piledriver who does carpentry and fixes cars as well, called the building's co-owner, Shannon Brownlee.
"I thought they were (kidding) me but I went down there anyway and it turns out they weren't (kidding)," said Brownlee, who called authorities.
Terry said investigators would check nationwide for "any law-enforcement cases that have two missing heads" and research the building's occupancy history for clues.
From 1977 to 2002, the building housed Snook's Nook, an antique warehouse specializing in automotive toys. Brownlee and a partner bought the building about three years ago from store owner Tom Snook, who rented space there for another year.
Sjoberg said he used the garage as a workshop for the last year and a half. A neighbor, Scott Lawton, a carpenter and contractor, said he rented the garage for several years before that while Snook owned the building.
"I built a lot of stuff in that shop," Lawton said. "Never thought there would be someone there I didn't know."
Sjoberg said someone had done "sloppy carpentry work," cutting through floor joists and planks, then closing the hole with two plywood covers, nailed side by side.
"These heads, they weren't that old," Sjoberg said. "You could tell by the shape the beanie was in. It was in good shape."
Snook, 79, contacted at home in Benicia about the find, said, "You're kidding me, really? I'll be damned."
"Well, I've never murdered anybody that I know of," Snook said. "I don't know how they got there."
Snook said he had several tenants over the years, including some "rough guys," and once used the garage himself, but is not aware of the floor ever being opened.
Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said the entire building is considered a crime scene. He could not say if the skulls could have been slipped into their position under the garage from outside.
The ground under the garage has eroded away, providing a shelter for stray cats.