Mummified body found in Greenwood home

[MontiLee]

Courtesy of WISH, Channel 8 Indianopolis

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) - The Johnson County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the discovery of a body found inside a White River Township home.

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Soon after they entered the house they discovered a body on the living room floor. Colonel Doug Cox with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department described the body as mummified.

Cox said the home is owned by 57-year-old Penny Morgan. She reportedly had medical issues. She was last scene around Christmas time when she visited her half sister who lives in a Franklin Nursing home. Deputies have been unable to find any other relatives in the area.

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Detectives are now trying to determine if the body found is that of Penny Morgan. The Johnson County coroner will perform an autopsy Thursday afternoon. Detectives say the body is so badly decomposed the coroner may not be able to make an identification.

[micah]

51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit?
James Owen in London
for National Geographic News
July 28, 2009

Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men—their heads stacked neatly to the side—have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month.

The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain.

(Related: " Vikings' Barbaric Bad Rap Beginning to Fade.")

The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacked off with swords or axes, according to excavation leader David Score of Oxford Archaeology, an archaeological-services company.

Announced in June, the pit discovery took place during an archaeological survey prior to road construction near the seaside town of Weymouth (map).

A Mere Flesh Wound

Many of the skeletons have deep cut marks to the skull and jaw as well as the neck. "The majority seem to have taken multiple blows," Score said.

The bodies show few signs of other trauma, suggesting the men were alive when beheaded.

One victim appears to have raised an arm in self-defense: "The hand appears to have had its fingers sliced through," Score noted.

The heads were neatly piled to one side of the pit, perhaps as a victory display, the team suggests.

Beheaded ... but Otherwise Healthy

Unusually, no trace of clothing has been found, indicating the men were buried naked.

Even if their weapons and valuables had been taken "we should have found bone buttons and things like that, but to date we've got absolutely nothing," Score said.

"They look like a healthy, robust, very strong, very masculine group of young males," he added. "It's your classic sort of warrior."

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CSI: Weymouth

The team hopes chemical analysis of the buried men's teeth will show whether they grew up in Britain or Scandinavia. (Related: "Vikings Filed Their Teeth, Skeleton Study Shows.")

Signs of muscle attachment on the bones could also help reveal whether the executed were Viking oarsmen, since "strong physical exertion in a particular direction does affect the bones," Score said.

"It might be possible to say they are overdeveloped in their upper body and arm strength ... people who are doing a lot of heavy rowing."

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