Human remains discovered in Montco water retention basin, authorities say
An autopsy will be conducted to determine how the person died, Towamencin Township police said.
Montgomery County authorities are investigating after skeletal human remains were discovered in a Towamencin Township water retention basin this week.
A surveyor working in the area of basin near Welsh Road and Grist Mill Drive discovered the remains Monday morning, the Towamencin Township Police Department said in a statement. The surveyor spotted a human skull in the basin, and contacted police, who arrived on scene just before noon.
Responding officers located the skull, which “appeared to be authentic,” police said. Montgomery County Detectives and personnel from the county coroner’s office later arrived on scene and secured the area, locating additional human skeletal remains and remnants of clothing in the process.
No indications of foul play or trauma were discovered at the scene, police said.
Investigators collected the remains and moved them to a coroner’s office facility for processing. The coroner’s office will perform an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of the person’s death.
The incident remains under investigation by Towamencin Township police. Individuals with information about the remains can contact investigators at 215-368-7606, police said.
These unidentified remains are not the first discovered in Towamencin. In 2013, a decomposed body was found near a construction site off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the township. A handgun was found nearby, and the remains had been there for at least several months before they were found, investigators initially said.
The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office later identified those remains as William Stilson, a well-known Massachusetts artist. Stilson, the coroner’s office found, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was around 72 at the time of his death, investigators said.