A family bought a quiet house on Willard Road and started planning their renovation. Then the contractors got to the garage — and what they found stopped the entire project cold.
A Routine Remodel Turned Into A Crime Scene
It started as an ordinary day on a recently sold property in Forest Township, just outside Flint in Genesee County.
Contractors were prepping the home for a remodel for its new owner. Standard demo work. Nothing unusual.
Until they found human remains.
The man who’d just purchased the property called Michigan State Police immediately. According to ABC12, an adult human skull was discovered in the garage — and more remains were found in other areas of the property.
Investigators Keep Coming Back
This wasn’t a one-and-done search.
Days after the initial discovery, investigators returned to the Willard Road home with a K-9 team to comb the property again. A neighbor, John Osborn, noticed the activity hadn’t stopped.
“I guess they were there last night for something,” he told ABC12.
Michigan State Police are now working with the Michigan State University Anthropology Department to identify the remains. Investigators believe the skull belonged to an adult, but they’re still trying to determine whether all the remains came from a single person.
A Detail That Raises More Questions
Here’s what’s known about the home itself: the man who lived there died in 2024, and a family member sold the property afterward.
What investigators are still working to understand is how the remains ended up there — and who they belong to.
For Osborn, the not-knowing is the hardest part. “That would be curiosity more than anything,” he said. “What happened.”
The Part That Hits Hardest
For some Michigan families, a discovery like this isn’t just a strange news story — it’s a phone call they’ve been dreading for years.
Since the remains were found, Michigan State Police have been fielding calls from families of missing loved ones, wondering if this could finally be their answer.
One of them was Becky Beck of Flint. Her daughter, Misty-Dawn Kerrison-Steiber, was murdered, and her skull was found in Flint’s Broome Park back in November 2017 — but the rest of her remains have never been recovered.
“Yeah, your heart goes down to your stomach,” Beck said of moments like these.
“Because her remains have not been found yet, they have to be somewhere,” she said. “I would like to get the rest of my daughter so I can bury her properly.”
The investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information about any of these death investigations is asked to contact Michigan State Police or to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-422-JAIL.
Do you think cases like this one will finally bring some Michigan families the answers they’ve been waiting years for?
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