Local News

Kids from Western Mass. summer camp discover human remains

The executive director told the Daily Hampshire Gazette he initially thought the bones belonged to a buck — that is, until the campers discovered a human skull.

August 29, 2023

1 minute to read

A group of children from a Western Mass. summer camp made a grisly discovery last week when they stumbled upon human skeletal remains.

They found the bones on an island in the Connecticut River near Greenfield and Montague, the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office said. The campers made the discovery around midday Wednesday, and an adult chaperone notified police.

Kurt Heidinger, executive director of the Westhampton-based Biocitizen environmental philosophy school, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that a 7-year-old boy first spotted the remains on Rawson Island.

Heidinger said he initially thought the bones belong to a buck — that is, until the group uncovered a skull.

“I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, that is a human skull,’” he told the Gazette, explaining that there was some excitement until the solemnity of the moment set in. “This isn’t ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ — this [is] a human being that somehow ended up here.”

According to the DA’s office, investigators collected what they could that day, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was at the scene the next day to ensure all the human remains were recovered.

The matter remains under investigation by police in Greenfield and Montague, as well as the Massachusetts State Police and the district attorney’s office.

The medical examiner will work to identify the remains.