Police Lab To Study Park Forest Man's Box Of Bones

PARK FOREST, Ill. (STNG) - John Ray's box of bones is headed back to Indiana.

Ray, who claims he's kept a box of human bones in his Park Forest residence since 1982, said he plans to take a few bones to Indiana's LaGrange County Sheriff's Department in the next few weeks.

The LaGrange County Sheriff's Department will transfer the bones to the Indiana State Police laboratory in Indianapolis for testing and identification.

In a SouthtownStar story published July 10, Ray said he bought the bones, albeit accidentally, at an estate auction in Shipshewana, Ind., in 1982.

He said he purchased a tattered 150-year-old book titled "The History of the American Indian." Packaged with the book was a cardboard box containing bones.

Responding to an inquiry from the SouthtownStar, Shipshewana police forwarded Ray's claim to the LaGrange County Sheriff's Department. Shipshewana fell under the LaGrange County Sheriff's Department jurisdiction during the time Ray acquired the bones.

"We'd send the bones down there to determine whether or not it was an Indian or someone else," said LaGrange County Sheriff Terry Martin. "They'd be able to tell us how old the bones are. Are we dealing with something that happened in the 1960s or the 1700s or 1800s?"

Martin said the bones might possibly belong to one of many Native American burial grounds located in Shipshewana.

He also said a representative from the Illinois State Police Department told him the bones may have been unearthed, contrary to what the estate auction dealer may have claimed. According to Ray, the dealer said the bones belonged to a Delaware Indian who was beaten to death at a bar in Michigan or Minnesota in the late 1960s before he was left to the animals atop the roof of a barn.

"The color of the bones led them to believe the bones were dug up," Martin said. "If they were left out on a building, they would be bleached white."

Ray said he hoped to start the process this week by digitally photographing all the bones and sending the photographs as well as their lengths and proportions to the LaGrange County Sheriff Department.

Afterward, Ray said he would deliver the bones to the department in person.

"Those bones being buried wherever they belong would be a great ending to this story -- whatever direction it heads," Ray said.