Allegheny County forensic experts should have been called to Point State Park immediately after old human bones were found last week during excavation for a $35 million park renovation, officials at the county medical examiner's office said Thursday.
"What if this was a homicide⢠What if this was a mass murder⢠What if this was a mass grave?" said Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist with the medical examiner's office. "When they found more pieces of bone, why did they not bring them to us, the office with jurisdiction⢠As a forensic pathologist, I feel very insulted by this -- I feel slighted."
Last week, a crew from Lowellville, Ohio-based S.E.T. Inc. -- hired by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources as general contractor -- was digging a trench behind the Fort Pitt Blockhouse to install temporary water lines.
The construction crew went beyond where it had been cleared to dig and found a few bone fragments about two feet below ground.
"Whatever happened, (the contractor) did get into a previously undug area," said Brook Blades, principal investigator with A.D. Marble & Co., a suburban Philadelphia archaeological firm hired by the state to monitor excavation.
The state's contract with S.E.T. for park renovations states that an archaeologist must be present when "archaeologically sensitive" areas are excavated. A.D. Marble wasn't there, Blades said, because the contractor was supposed to dig by an existing water line, so nothing archaeologically significant should have been found.
Excavation has stopped.
S.E.T. refused to comment.
Pittsburgh homicide detectives brought a flat, fingertip-sized fragment of decomposed bone to the medical examiner's office on Friday afternoon. Omalu examined it and determined it was not likely human.
On Tuesday, Frank Mikolic, an archaeologist with A.D. Marble, found more than 50 pieces of bone, including part of a jaw with teeth and parts of limbs, at the excavation site. Blades said he believes the bones are from one person.
The DCNR could not explain why the medical examiner was not called after Tuesday's discovery.
"I don't have insight into why (the police) took the piece they took, nor do I know why they took only one piece," DCNR spokeswoman Chris Novak said in an e-mail. DCNR officials refused interview requests and would only answer questions via e-mail.
Point State Park was the site of several colonial-era forts and battles during the French and Indian War in the mid-1700s.
Richard Lang, an archaeologist who in the 1950s helped excavate a section of Fort Pitt, said the remains could possibly be American Indian.
"What's interesting to me is that they are so close to the burial grounds for Mercer's Fort, the predecessor to Fort Pitt," said Lang, who is a member of the Fort Pitt Preservation Society.
The society wants the state to preserve the restored wall of old Fort Pitt rather than bury it to make a festival grounds.
The medical examiner's office is examining its legal rights, said Stephen Pilarsky, the office's chief of operations.
"We're certainly of the opinion that we should have been notified that more bones had been found," Pilarsky said. "If they found more bones, regardless of whether they got there yesterday or 300 years ago, we should have been notified."
