A trash bag containing the mummified bodies of three infants was found in the crawl space of a rural home about 10 miles southwest of Brownwood, Texas, and will be analyzed by medical examiners, authorities said.
The sheriff’s department in Brown County is investigating the deaths as homicides, Chief Deputy Mike McCoy said.
“We have a good direction in which to go,” McCoy told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate, but said no arrests had been made.
Homeowners renovating a two-story rock house in rural Brown County, about 70 miles southeast of Abilene, made the discovery while doing electrical work.
The trash bag was found in the attic crawl space between the home’s first and second floors.
The family has lived there for three years. They are not suspects, McCoy said. He would not identify the family or the precise location of the home, which he said was built in the mid-1980s.
Upon an initial review, Brown County authorities thought the bag contained one infant. Investigators then closed the bag for shipment before examining further, McCoy said.
“We didn’t disturb any of the other packaging because it was forensic evidence,” he said.
It wasn’t until the bag arrived at the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office in Austin on Friday that investigators found three separate sacks, each containing an infant. A call to the medical examiner was not immediately returned.
“One baby was wrapped in a towel, one baby was in a blanket, and the baby we originally found was wrapped in a sheet inside a paper sack,” McCoy said.
“The one that I saw was a larger baby that I do not believe would be like a miscarried child,” McCoy said. “I believe it was at least a full-term baby. But that’s just guessing.”
The infants’ ages and genders were not known due to deterioration.
McCoy said no missing babies have been reported in the 26 years he’s worked in Brown County.
Investigators are searching for the home’s prior occupants, hoping to track down anyone who has ever lived there.
A forensic anthropologist from Dallas has also been contacted to determine the time and cause of death, as well as the infants’ sexes and ages.
Brown County has asked Texas Ranger Nick Hanna to help with the case. The sheriff’s department also may call in other agencies.
McCoy called the crime the worst in his county since three dead girls turned up on the side of a road 15 years ago.
The discovery has rattled locals in the otherwise quiet town.
“My thinking was those things happen in a big city, they just don’t happen in a small town like Brownwood,” said Don Greeley, an evangelist at Brady Avenue Church of Christ. “We’re just a good, quiet conservative community. It’s a good place to live and raise your kids. And it was just a shock.”