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FORT MYERS, Fla. (TCD) — A woman at a local antique store found much more than a good deal while looking through the shop’s Halloween section over the weekend.
According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, on Saturday, Nov. 4, a woman perusing the store, who coincidentally is an anthropologist, noticed a skull and “recognized it to be human.” She contacted the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, and detectives from the Major Crimes Unit arrived at the establishment to investigate.
Detectives at the scene also confirmed the skull belonged to a human.
The owner reportedly told officials the skull was previously in a storage unit and had been purchased several years ago.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said the situation is “not suspicious in nature.”
Lee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Anita Iriarte spoke with Newsweek and said this case was “definitely different” because the office does not typically get contacted by an antique store “that there’s a human skull on the floor.”
Iriarte said the skull will undergo testing at the local medical examiner’s office, then will be transported to Gainesville for additional analysis.
Iriarte told Newsweek, “It was found in a Halloween section. What’s been described is that the antique shop was having a fossil day, so this female, an anthropologist, was shopping and noticed the skull and then was like, ‘This is definitely not a Halloween decoration.'”
Preliminary analysis shows the skull is about 75 years old and there does not appear to be any trauma to the bones.
She said, “There’s nothing that leads them to believe that this skull has been preserved by suspicious means of any sort.”
The woman who found the skull reportedly thinks the skull might be that of a Native American.
The managing partner of Paradise Vintage Market, Beth Meyer, told Newsweek, “The anthropologist came into the store, and gave a very informative and educational explanation as to why she thought it was Native American. The medical examiner came in, bagged and tagged the skull, and took it to the lab for testing. If it is Native American, it will be returned to one of the local tribes and we will have a ceremony.”
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