Boy's Corpse Removed From Sealed Vault And Stolen From Cemetery

[bloodrayne]

Remains Of Boy, 6, Taken From Cemetery

Tampa, Florida - The skeletal remains of a 6-year-old boy were removed from a sealed vault beneath a 600-pound lid, authorities said.

Caretakers at Memorial Cemetery discovered the empty coffin Thursday, police said. The vandals broke an adhesive seal on a 29-year-old marble vault, slid off the lid and peeled back a metal liner to get to the coffin, police spokesman Larry McKinnon said.

The coffin, which held the skeletal remains of Stevie Russell Dale, was found empty beside the vault, McKinnon said.

"We don't feel like it was pranksters or kids committing vandalism because it's too much work to get these remains," he said. "We are just leaning toward it being cult related or involving Santeria or some voodoo because we don't have any other reasonable explanation."

Danny Jorgensen, chairman of the religious studies department at the University of South Florida, refuted the theory by police.

"They are quick to blame a cultist or a religion they know little about when something strange happens," Jorgensen told The Tampa Tribune. "It's not a voodoo practice or anything that would be known in Santeria. Those kinds of comments are immensely offensive to people who practice those religions."

Santeria involves sacrificing animals to different spirits and is known to be practiced in Cuba and Miami.

There's a $1,000 reward for information leading to the remains of Stevie, who died when he was hit by a car May 2, 1975.

"They took his life away and then they come in and take his bones now," said his mother Mattie Dale. "I'm begging please, bring his remains back."