Fishermen claim to spot skull

Search for bones unsuccessful

GRANT COUNTY — Fishermen using an underwater camera in an irrigation channel thought they caught something more than they expected Monday — images of a human skull.

They notified the Grant County Sheriff's Office and a search began to find the skull by Grant County Search and Rescue divers, according to Chief Criminal Deputy John Turley.

Two fishermen said they spotted the video image of a skull in an irrigation channel along the Grant and Adams counties line. The channel has vertical walls, is 40 to 50 feet deep with swift water running from Crescent Lake to Luna Lake. It is part of the Wahluke Branch Canal feeding water to farmers around Othello.

Search and rescue volunteers Finley Grant and Dan Stout used scuba gear to swim the channel and search for the reported skull, but did not find any sign of human remains, said Turley.

Investigators plan on continuing the search using better equipment. Turley said the sheriff's office has an underwater camera, but it only shows 4 to 5 feet underwater. Once the equipment arrives, the search will continue.

Turley said it is possible the image was something else, rather than a human skull.

"They may have thought they found something, but who knows," said Turley. "We owe it to the public to take time to find out what happened."

Bodies and skeletons have been found in the remote location before, said Turley.

"It wouldn't be an unusual thing to find something," said Turley. "If we find this set of skeletal remains, it would be the second set found in my time."