Philadelphia police dug up human remains at Potter’s Field in an ongoing effort to identify homicide victims in the city, some of whom died decades ago.
Police are digging up human remains as part of an ongoing project to identify the bodies of homicide victims in Philadelphia, some of whom died decades ago.
The Philadelphia Police Homicide Unit as well as local, state, university and federal collaborators -- including the FBI -- partnered up to create the Remains Identification Project (RIP) to exhume and identify victims who died tragically.
Police said all the remains are of unidentified people whose deaths were ruled by the Medical Examiner as a homicide, probable homicide or undetermined.
The project -- which is funded by a grant -- began in 2021 and the current weeklong operation is occurring after six months of planning, according to officials.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
Tuesday afternoon, officials exhumed remains at Potter’s Field on 12841 Dunks Ferry Road in Philadelphia.
Police said they are currently working to collect the unidentified bodies of eight homicide victims from the field, including a child between the ages of 4 and 6 who died in 1962.
Portions of the remains will be recovered for DNA testing and sequencing to apply Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG) techniques, according to officials. The investigators will then work to notify surviving family members.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
“We’re trying to get to a close relative,” Ryan Gallagher, Assistant Director of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Office of Forensics Science, said on Tuesday. “Once we get to a close relative, detectives can go out and they can interview family members to see if they have a loved one that’s unidentified or they don’t know about.”
A similar operation took place in Philadelphia back in 2018. Officials also said similar technology was used when investigators identified the "Boy in the Box" in December 2022, more than 60 years after the child's death.
The exhumation efforts will continue through the week, according to officials.
The field where the bodies are being exhumed is a city-owned property that was once a cemetery for unidentified victims, police said.
