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Although St. George police have no new leads about bones three teen-age boys found in a cave, they hope the story will get to someone who can help.
Cody Adams, 14, Jesse Adams, 13, and Jason Franz, 14, found the bones of a 14- or 15-year old boy when they were exploring in their Bloomington Hills subdivision. The skeleton appeared to be mostly Caucasian with some American Indian features, according to Utah Chief Medical Examiner Todd Gray.
The boy had a skull fracture that Gray believes happened before his death because the skeleton shows that the head had swelled after it had been hit.
Along with the bones, the boys found a wool coat, denim pants, a plaid shirt, a patchwork quilt and Marshall Field's boots that may be the key to the puzzle.
"We didn't find [out about] the exact boots, but in a 1918 catalog, we found a very similar pair," said Marshall Field's spokeswoman Lynn Galia.
Galia said the boots were sold from about 1917 to about 1920.
With this information dies a couple of leads about the mystery boy.
A scientist thought perhaps the boy had crawled into the cave during one of the earthquakes that shook St. George at the turn of the century, and was hit by a falling rock.
Too early.
A woman told St. George police that one of her classmates had gone up into the hills and never returned in 1940.
Too late.
A history buff said he was "sure in my bones" that the skeleton was cowboy poet Everett Ruess, a young man who disappeared after traveling through the Grand Canyon. Historian Bud Rusho said Ruess was about 20 when he disappeared, and that he disappeared in 1934.
Too late and too old.
"We have pretty much nothing right now," said St. George police Det. Richard Triplett. "We're hoping once the word gets out on the date of these bones, people will start calling."
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