LOUISVILLE, Ky. — There’s a mystery in Jefferson County. Authorities recently found human remains in Louisville. 

What You Need To Know

  • Human remains were found on May 15 at a Louisville quarry

  • Jefferson County’s Chief Deputy Coroner says they were notified of "an adult leg bone in a shoe” 

  • If they’re not able to figure out who the body parts belong to, they’ll use databases to help try to locate the individual

First reported by the Courtier-Journal, Jefferson County Deputy Coroner, Scott Russ, tells Spectrum News 1 Louisville Metro Police Department’s homicide unit was there. Russ says the coroner’s office was alerted.

“We were notified of an adult leg bone in a shoe that was found in a quarry there.” Russ explained.

The big question is, who could it be?

DNA might get investigators closer to the answer.

“At this point, we really don’t have a lot of information. We’re waiting for, trying to determine who it could possibly be.” Russ explained. “So, there’s DNA tests going on and other things behind the scenes, but I mean really, we just don’t have a lot to pass on at this point.”

Russ said if they’re not able to figure out who the body parts belong to, they’ll use databases. 

Russ explained to Spectrum News 1, “With the help of the state medical examiner’s office, they would enter information into… several national databases. The University of North Texas, I believe, has a database. So they enter, I guess the shoe information, bone information. We can try to extract DNA from the bone as well and that information will be entered into several different databases. Federal databases, the Texas database. Hopefully, there will be a hit that came back either for a match for a shoe or the DNA.”

Russ explained information from various sources is entered in databases.

“If you have a parent who has their child that’s been missing, they would enter their DNA into the system and there would be a hit through that, kind of like how you see with the national things that folks are doing, just finding their lineage, their DNA, their heritage.” Russ said.

The area is very large and widespread. A neighbor said the quarry used to be a lot of fun. Adding that decades ago, you could see down through the crystal clear water to the bottom. Today the quarry is closed. Russ said the office has gotten a lot of calls from families who have heard about the discovery.

“We’re just trying to put the information in these databases, see if there’s anything out there that would lead to a lower leg bone and a shoe. But we’ll hopefully put the pieces of that puzzle together soon.” Russ explained.