SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Police have found human skeletal remains on a property in Southaven.
They investigated the property after receiving reports that a body may be on the grounds.
According to Mark Little with the Criminal Investigation Division, an inmate told investigators a body had been dumped on a property located on Stanton Road.
Police said they do not believe the inmate had anything to do with the person’s death.
The property does not belong to him, but he has been there before.
Rather, police said the same family has owned the home for about 40 years or so. At this point, the people living there are not suspects.
Some people told WREG police have responded to the property before.
“We’re familiar with people that’s come and gone from here. It’s not new to us, but that doesn’t mean that has anything to do with this situation,” Little said.
Shelby County records associate the address where the remains were found with current Shelby County jail inmate Josef Schnabl, 37. He was arrested December 27 on carjacking and aggravated robbery charges. He had been wanted since December 20th. He has a criminal past, including a conviction for second-degree murder from an incident that happened in 2001.
Crews with the University of Tennessee Forensics Group were on the scene helping excavate the site.
Police contacted the family of the person the inmate identified as being buried there. They still need to officially identify the victim.
Police said it is possible the remains could have been there for the past five years.
The property bring excavated is the only residential property in the 2600 block of Stanton. The area is otherwise industrial.
WREG told a truck repair company around the corner about the news Monday.
“We test drive vehicles through there all the time. We noticed something was up. We really didn’t know what was going on,” said one of the owners of T&B Truck Repair. Due to the road closure, his employees had to perform test drives on alternate routes.