Suspected human remains found in basement of commercial Tarentum building

Suspected human remains were discovered Tuesday morning in the basement of a Tarentum building undergoing renovations.

Bones including what appeared to be part of hip or shoulder bones and a leg bone were found by a contractor who had been digging in the basement of 305 E. Fifth Ave., a former ceramics store that is being redeveloped.

Dave Rankin, executive director of building owner FCP Services, alerted Tarentum police about the discovery and turned over the remains to the department. The bones were in possession of the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office by mid-afternoon, county spokeswoman Amie Downs said.

Rankin said the remains were found near a wall against a neighboring building that Rankin said once housed a funeral home. The W. Edward Flick Funeral Home had once been in the building adjacent to Rankin’s, according to Cindy Homburg, an unofficial borough historian. It closed in the 1960s.

The bones were found under the basement’s concrete floor, on top of and beneath flat stones that were on top of a circular, brick-lined pit about four feet across, said Dave Barnes, superintendent of Mosites Construction.

The soil there was darker than other soil in the area.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

A Mosites Construction worker digs in the basement of a Tarentum building undergoing renovations. Bones and bone fragments were found in the basement of the building on Tuesday, June 8, 2021.

Workers also have found other artifacts in the basement, including parts of glass bottles and some small, intact ones still corked.

Beyond its use as a ceramics shop, Rankin said he did not know much about the history of the building, which he believes to be more than a century old.

Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review

A Mosites Construction worker holds bone fragments found while contractors were digging in the basement of a Tarentum building undergoing renovations on Tuesday, June 8, 2021.

Tarentum Councilwoman Carrie Fox’s aunt, Joan Golgan, started the ceramics shop which Fox’s parents, Barbara and Carl Magnetta, later took over. Fox called the finding of bones in the basement “very bizarre.”

Much of the building’s basement is being filled in to support a laundromat that will be on the building’s first floor. Work in the basement began Monday. The building, being called The Depot, is also expected to house some type of food business on the first floor and office and meeting space on its second floor.

Crews continued working Tuesday afternoon, and unearthed a few more small, suspected bone fragments. Rankin said they would be given to police. Work would be stopped if any other significant items were found, he said.

Tarentum police could not immediately be reached for comment.