By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The partial human skull found near Mineral on Saturday appears to be from an adult, but detectives don’t know if it belongs to a male or a female, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said this afternoon.
They’re hopeful there is enough DNA to help identity the individual, Chief Deputy Stacy Brown said this afternoon.
It was found by a hiker in a wooded area and will be sent to a forensic pathologist for further examination.
“We really don’t know how long its been out there,” Brown said. “Weather conditions affect that, and we’re not experts.”
The find was reported Saturday and detectives, along with two dogs, have searched the area for potential evidence, according to Brown. It was in a brushy area on the ground, she said.
Brown said she expects members of Lewis County Search and Rescue to go out there and help look sometime in the next couple of weeks.
“We did find other evidence, or potential evidence at the scene,” she said, without specifying what it was.
The sheriff’s office isn’t saying how much of the skull was recovered or even a location more specific than near Mineral.
“Until we know what we have and what kind of an investigation we’re looking at, we’re not releasing a lot,” Brown said.
Its too early to consider what missing persons it could match up to, according to Brown. She did say they don’t have any indication its Kayla Croft-Payne, who vanished almost a year ago at age 18.
Mineral is along state Route 7, near where the Lewis, Pierce and Thurston county lines meet.
Besides Croft-Payne, who was living in the Chehalis area when she disappeared, the sheriff’s office lists two other missing persons on its web site.
Henri W. Maillard, 20, disappeared in July 1994 after a drive up the Skate Creek Road near Packwood with a friend, according to the sheriff’s office.
Delmar W. Sample, a 53-year-old pharmacist from Onalaska, failed to report to work in Chehalis in March 2005. Sample’s truck was found near Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula.
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