Remains of 8 Soldiers Found in Same Grave at Arlington

Screw up sparks criminal probe
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 3, 2010 9:18 AM CST
Remains of 8 Soldiers Found in Same Grave at Arlington
A grounds crew member maintains the grass at gravestones among fall leaves at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010.   (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The Army has launched yet another criminal probe into Arlington National Cemetery, after eight urns marked “unknown” were found in a single grave. Bodies are misplaced or mixed up disturbingly often at Arlington, but this is the first time that it’s sparked a criminal probe. “When there’s eight sets of human remains in one grave, it’s most likely not a mistake,” explained one army investigator.

The incident was just revealed today, but the urns were found back in October, when the director of the Army’s National Cemeteries Program “became aware of questionable practices” at the cemetery. Arlington called in a top military forensic anthropologist—who normally works to identify remains on foreign battlefields—to study the urns, the Washington Post reports. He’s been able to identify three of the urns, and concluded that a fourth is unidentifiable. (More Arlington National Cemetery stories.)

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