30+ Year-Old Child’s Coffin and Remains Dug Up in Baldwin County

MILLEDGEVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Baldwin County Sheriff’s office is investigating after a child’s coffin and remains were found exhumed outside St. Paul’s Cemetery in North Baldwin County.

According to Captain Brad King with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s office, a person visiting the gravesite of loved one at St. Paul’s Cemetery reported discovering the coffin in the woodline surrounding the area.

King says the coffin contained the remains of a 1 to 2 year old African-American male. He believes the coffin was not in a burial vault, and had been in the ground for at least 30 years. The coffin showed damage consistent with a backhoe, signifying that it was dug up.

The coffin and the remains are at the GBI Crime Lab in Atlanta, and will be examined by an anthropologist tomorrow morning.

Baldwin County deputies are conducting interviews and sitework at this time, but have no leads as to who would dig up the remains. They are not ruling out the possibility that the remains were disinterred at another location and planted near St. Paul’s cemetery.

King says they hope to identify the remains and have them returned to the family for reburial as quickly as possible.

“This is someone’s child that was laid to rest…in our opinion we have a family somewhere that believes the child is resting in peace there…our ultimate goal is to do the right thing for the child as far as a proper burial,” King told 41NBC.