Local police say a box of human bones found in an Ohio garage last week belonged to a fraternal organization who used them in rituals more than 100 years ago, NBC News reports.
A resident of Mount Healthy, Ohio, called police Thursday night after discovering a box in his garage that he believed held decomposed human remains.
Mount Health Police Chief Vince Demasi announced in a Facebook post on Friday that the bones belong to a group known as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which was founded in 1819 and had a lodge in Mount Healthy. The bones were allegedly used “as part of their organization’s rituals.”
“The garage owner purchased a building in Mt. Healthy where the group met,” Demasi wrote. “The group has long since moved from our area and when the new building owner cleaned the building, he stored material contained therein, including the box with human remains, in the garage he purchased here in Mt. Healthy.”
Demasi went on to confirm that law enforcement has “no reason to believe the remains found were from a recent homicide.”
The bones are now in the hands of the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office. Police say investigators at the Coroner’s Office will continue to examine the remains.
According to the group’s website, the Odd Fellows was founded in England in the 1600s, with the first Order in America founded in 1806.
The Odd Fellows’ mission is to “provide a framework that promotes personal and social development. Lodge degrees and activities aim to improve and elevate every person to a higher, nobler plane; to extend sympathy and aid to those in need, making their burdens lighter, relieving the darkness of despair; to war against vice in every form, and to be a great moral power and influence for the good of humanity.”
