Remains draw authorities' interest

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By CORY MATTESON / Lincoln Journal Star

Eric Schroeder, 33, called his father first, because he wasn’t sure if what he saw was some elaborate prank.

From the treeline where he’d been chopping firewood, he walked down to a creek bank on the family’s farmland property, first noticing the jeans, then the boots.

“I just figured somebody gutted a deer, got their clothes bloody and left,” he said, recalling his initial reaction.

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Then he saw the hip bones.

“Oh, no,” he said he thought next.

At 1:51 p.m. Friday, Schroeder called the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, which is currently investiging the discovery of what appear to be human remains near South 120th and Van Dorn streets.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Tom Trotter said a prelimary investigation leads officials to believe that the remains are human, though details beyond that were unclear.

Age, gender and other general details weren’t determined before nightfall, he said. A crime scene team will begin investigating the matter this morning.

Before calling the Sheriff’s Office, Schroeder asked his father, Estel, to come over to the land, which is used for cattle grazing, and look at what appeared to him to be the remains of a hunter.

“We both agreed that something happened here,” Estel Schroeder said. “It's not something you want to find on your property.”

They saw a long gun and a gun case, Eric Schroeder said. And he also noticed a cell phone. Trotter declined to confirm or deny whether the specific items had been found at the scene.

They didn’t see an upper body, and Eric Schroeder said he guessed that coyotes might be responsible for that.

“It has been there awhile,” Estel Schroeder, 77, said. “I have seen other things lay around and I have had critters die on me.

“With livestock, it's nothing new to see. But this was a little bit different, because it's human.”

Estel Schroeder said he goes down to the family farm twice a day to turn the 30-plus head of cattle out. But neither he nor his son had been in the specific area where they found the remains since the summer.

“The last time anybody was in that vicinity was in late middle to late June, when we switched the cattle to a different pasture,” Eric Schroeder said.

And in June, Estel Schroeder said, the grass was much taller than it was Friday. He said he didn’t remember seeing anything suspicious the last time he was down there.

The most unusual thing he’d seen on the property before Friday was some flooding a few years back.

“This is definitely different,” he said.

Reach Cory Matteson at 473-2655 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.