Race Massacre Search Finds More Remains

The latest search for the remains of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victims has found three more sets containing gunshot wounds, investigators said. The three are among 11 sets of remains exhumed during the latest excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery, state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said Friday, per the AP. "Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons," Stackelbeck said. "The third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning."

Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, who will remain on site to examine the remains, said one victim suffered bullet and shotgun wounds while the second was shot with two different caliber bullets. Searchers are seeking simple wooden caskets because they were described at the time in newspaper articles, death certificates, and funeral home records as the type used for burying massacre victims, Stackelbeck has said. The exhumed remains will then be sent to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City for DNA and genealogical testing in an effort to identify them, per the AP.

The search ends just over a month after the first identification of remains previously exhumed during the search for massacre victims were identified as those of World War I veteran CL Daniel from Georgia. There was no sign of gunshot wounds to Daniel, Stubblefield said at the time, noting that if a bullet doesn't strike bone and passes through the body, such a wound likely could not be determined after so many years. The search is the fourth since Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum launched the project in 2018, and 47 sets of remains have now been exhumed.

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Stackelbeck said investigators are mapping the graves in an effort to determine whether more searches should be conducted. Brenda Nails-Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors and a member of the committee overseeing the search for victims, said she is grateful for Bynum's efforts to find victim's remains. "It is my prayer that these efforts continue, to bring more justice and healing to those who were lost and to those families in our community," Nails-Alford said. Bynum and City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper announced a new committee this month to study possible reparations for survivors and descendants of the massacre and for the area of north Tulsa where it occurred.

(More Tulsa Race Massacre stories.)