Officials in Connecticut say they weren't sure if two skulls discovered at a local dump were some kind of Halloween prank or evidence of something more serious.
A worker at the Stamford Refuse Transfer Station who was sorting through trash came across two skulls along with a jawbone and "several books on Satan and witchcraft" while sifting through the refuse, they say.
Although the worker thought they might have been a Halloween prank or decorations rather than real skulls, the state medical examiner confirmed they were the skulls of an older man and woman.
That's when a Fairfield, Conn., resident came forward, telling officials the two skulls had been bought "as a joke" by his now-deceased son.
Robert DeVitto, 89, said he hadn't been aware they were real; it was unknown whether he son knew they were real or not.
"He would have them on display in the living room, and I'm glad that they're gone now," he said.
A junk dealer who bought the skulls along with other items belonging to the son, also named Robert, brought them to the refuse transfer station in Stamford Thursday, which notified police of the discovery in the trash.
Officers who responded closed off the area to investigate, finding a mandible and several books on witchcraft and Satanism along with the skulls.
DeVitto said his son lived a "troubled life" before he died this month of a heart attack at age 56.
Police said they were still trying to determine the original source of the skulls.
"We've got some homework to do to find out where they came from and how they got to Stamford," Lieutenant Diedrich Hohn of the Stamford Police said.
"We are trying to determine whether they came from a grave robbery, if they were bought online or something more sinister," he said.
Robert DeVitto said his son bought the skulls online.
Skulls can be bought online legitimately from authorized medical supply houses but they are also sometimes available on the black market, police said, adding they would continue their efforts to track down exactly where the two skulls came from to ensure they are not evidence of a crime.
Earlier this year, police in Texas initiated a similar investigation when someone offered a skull as a donation to a Goodwill store.
