Mystery gets solved after Pinellas skull discovery

Friday, October 30, 2009

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USF anthropologists sift through a grave site at the Royal Palm Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A woman originally buried in Pinellas County more than 60 years ago is finally resting in peace.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the University of South Florida exhumed the body of Ruth Keaton, who died in 1948, in the hopes of solving a mystery that began when a skull was found in a Pinellas County home during a routine sheriff's office call.

The actual story began almost 30 years ago when a worker at the Royal Palm Cemetery in St. Petersburg stole the skull and eventually gave it to a friend nicknamed 'gravedigger.'

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Skull returned

The skull sat on a table in gravedigger's home until that sheriff's call a few weeks ago.

Weeks of interviews and research followed, including USF anthropologists unearthing the original gravesite.

They were able to determine that when a neighboring grave was being dug in the early 1980's, Keaton's grave collapse and her remains spilled out.

Her grave was never re-dug and her skull was stolen - eventually ending up with 'gravedigger.'

Officials contacted family members and Keaton's remains were returned to a new grave.

"I don't see any benefit to the public to persecute them or charge them with this,' said nephew Mark Keaton, who added that his aunt died during surgery for appendicitis. "And I have no malice against them, I forgive them."