Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Releases Information on Bodies Found Near Mattole and Centerville Beaches

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[Photo by Andrew Stephens]

Autopsies on both bodies found on beaches in the last week have been performed, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department.

The autopsy on the body found near the Mattole Beach, unfortunately, was inconclusive, explained Samantha Karges of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department. “Due to the decomposition of the body, we cannot positively confirm the sex of the body,” she explained.

The autopsy on the body found at Centerville Beach determined that the body was that of a male and, according to Karges. “Preliminary results from the autopsy show the cause of death is consistent with drowning,” she said. “However we are still doing more investigation into the cause and manner of death.”

Karges stated, “We are in the process of collecting DNA from families of local missing people to do a DNA comparison on both bodies. We anticipate it will take at least a few weeks to get those results back. We do send out DNA for testing, as we don’t have the capability to do a comparison in-house. I don’t have an exact timeline unfortunately, as it depends on the lab’s workload, the family’s timeliness in submitting DNA, etc. So it will be at least a few weeks until we know more.”

She wanted to “reassure the public that we are working on this and we ask that they remain patient as we continue the investigation process.”

Earlier Chapters:

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17 Comments
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matt
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matt
6 years ago

I wonder if Mr. Centerville is QM???

phlogiston
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phlogiston
6 years ago

The “Earlier Chapters” links have problems. The “Body Discovered Near Mattole Beach” point to https://kymkemp.com/2018/02/24/body-found-at-centerville-beach/. The “Body Found at Centerville Beach” link points to https://kymkemp.com/2018/02/24/body-found-at-centerville-beach/v, which for some reason redirects to https://kymkemp.com/2010/07/23/va-softens-stance-on-medical-marijuana/.

Muddy Black Dodge
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Muddy Black Dodge
6 years ago

Please keep us Humboldt folk updated on this story. My grandmother passed away yesterday, we took our four-year-old out to see the sunset last night in Celebration of Grandma D’s life. Picture is from the community garden next the the school in Sunnybre…

Sleepy Alligator
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Sleepy Alligator
6 years ago

Sorry to hear you lost your grandmother. Beautiful sunset!

Lazydaze
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Lazydaze
6 years ago

So sorry for your loss.

Bigmeat707
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Bigmeat707
6 years ago

Thanks kim. Your report was much more thorough than loco’s

Eldon G. Whitehead
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Eldon G. Whitehead
6 years ago

Absolutely Kim, Thank You for your great reporting on this and all of your other reporting of things happening throughout Humboldt County and elsewhere. We had a Gentlemen speak at our Fortuna Kiwanis Club meeting yesterday morning by the name of John Richmond of Lost Coast Communications and I asked him a question if his Company could compete against you and your reporting. They have heard about you and your work in gathering and reporting news of our area and he has great respect for your work and diligence in reporting and fact finding on what you post. We are very lucky here in Humboldt County to have you doing this for us. Thank you so very much for everything that you do for us.

Adam Harrold
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Adam Harrold
6 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

They may be bigger but for those in Sohum you are the gold standard. I am sure it is a huge amount of work. Thank you

Bill
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Bill
6 years ago

Did they ever identify the body found in the Van Duzen River near where it meets the Eel River a couple weeks ago?

PollyP
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PollyP
6 years ago

Wow, can’t tell sex from human remains? Where did they have the work done? There are skeletal differences that can be seen by anthropologists thousands of years postmortem; no excuse not to check the pubic bones. This doesn’t give me a great deal of confidence in whoever the Sheriff’s office has contracted to perform autopsies. Sex differences in skeletal material is taught at the 300 level anthropology, archeology, paleontology and biology. Why did it fail this time? A decomposed body still has its bones.

https://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/male_female.html
https://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/comic/activity/Skeleton_male_or_female.htm

In addition, genetic work will easily determine if the deceased is Male or Female.

Were our tax dollars used for this flawed analysis?

Robert Tuel
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Robert Tuel
6 years ago

Who does the Autopsies for the HCSO/ Coroner

Ernestine
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Ernestine
6 years ago
Reply to  Robert Tuel

This guy

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