Skeletal Remains Dug Up at Pool Site

A story just in time for Halloween!

It’s not often that you have to call a forensic anthropologist to examine some human remains while trying to dig a hole for a pool, but that’s exactly what happened this week in Riverton, New Jersey.

Employees from a New Jersey-based company called Budd’s Pools & Spas had to stop their excavation process on Monday when a large rock fell down in an area where they weren’t digging (spooky!). The rock slid off some dirt that uncovered what workers thought was a human skull. They were right. There was no coffin or encasement around the New Jersey pool skeleton.

The bones were relatively undisturbed because they weren’t discovered by the backhoe, so none of the remains were crushed during the excavation process.

The home belongs to new owners who had just started a renovation and decided to add a pool to their yard. The property is over 100 years old, approximately the same age as the bones. According to a spokesperson for the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, “The remains appear to be very old. There don’t appear to be any signs of foul play.”

That will be good to hear for one of the neighbors in the area who worried about the scene of police tape and a forensic anthropologist digging in the dirt next to his home. “I’m hoping it’s 100 year old bones and, you know, nothing new,” the neighbor said.

Lucky enough for the neighborhood, that seems to be the case. The County Prosecutor’s Office says there’s no indication of a crime.

As you can imagine, the pool company (Budd’s Pools) have found strange things while digging pool sites since they opened in 1968. Owner Randy Budd said though they’ve “found bones of horses, cows, all kinds of garbage…we’ve been open since 1968 and we’ve never seen anything like this.”

According to Budd, the owners weren’t upset about the discovery. He said, “Their main concern was proper burial. They made the comment that if the prosecutor’s office didn’t take it, they would see they got a proper burial.”

That’s a good idea. No homeowner wants to invoke any evil from an ancient burial ground. I mean, have you seen “Poltergeist?” They had a memorable scene in a pool excavation site, too.

The construction is going to be delayed a little bit, but that’s to be expected. What’s odd to the crew is that it happened so close to Halloween and that the circumstances of the discovery seemed so coincidental.

Said Budd, “It’s almost like the body wanted to be found.”

Happy Halloween!