A 33-year-old man gardening in his backyard in Queens unearthed a macabre discovery with his tilling — finding an urn containing human ashes and some dentures buried underground, a police source said Friday.
The man was digging in his garden outside his home on 20th Road in Whitestone around 8:30 Thursday morning when he made the chilling discovery of an urn filled with ashes buried in the dirt, plus some dentures next to it, which he quickly brought to the attention of police.
On Friday the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and an anthropologist contracted by the city determined that the remains were from a human cremation and that human bone fragments were left behind, cops said.
There is an ongoing investigation. While it is sometimes permissible to bury human remains on private property in New York City, such burials require permission from the property owner, as well as government permits, and are subject to specific zoning restrictions.
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