OKLAHOMA CITY — A third set of remains with a gunshot wound was found in the Tulsa cemetery during the search for graves of victims of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921according to a government official.
The remains are one of three sets excavated so far during the last search and were found in an area where 18 black men killed in the massacre are believed to be buried, Oklahoma State archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said in a statement on social media Friday.
“We have exhumed him, he is in the forensic lab and is being analyzed,” Stackelbeck said at Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa.
The discovery comes nearly a month after the first identification of the remains previously exhumed during the search for victims of the massacre were identified as those of World War I veteran CL Daniel of Georgia.
Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield said no gunshot wounds were found in Daniel’s remains, but said the remains were fragmented and a cause of death could not be determined.
The remains unearthed during the current search are among 40 graves that have been found, Stackelbeck said. They fit criteria for how victims of the massacre were buried, based on newspaper articles from the time, death certificates and funeral home records.
“Those three individuals were buried in adult-sized wooden coffins. They were removed from the ground and taken to our on-site forensic facility,” Stackelbeck said.
Previous searches resulted in the discovery of more than 120 sets of remains and approximately two dozen sent to Intermountain Forensic in Salt Lake City to help identify them.
On Thursday, Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum and City Councilmember Vanessa Hall-Harper announced a new committee to study various reparations for survivors and relatives of the massacre and for the area of North Tulsa where the massacre took place.
The massacre took place in 1921, spread over two days, long suppressed episode of racial violence that destroyed a community known as Black Wall Street and ended with the deaths of as many as 300 black people, thousands of black residents locked up in internment camps run by the National Guard, and more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches destroyed.