By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A casket was found wedged in a Lewis County creek over the weekend and authorities don’t yet know whether it contains a body.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said he was notified of the discovery on Sunday night and waded out to take a look at it yesterday.
“We can’t tell if it’s occupied or not,” McLeod said.
The steel gray casket is partially submerged, the foot end driven into the creek bottom, almost as if deposited there by raging floodwaters, he said.
He’s meeting, probably tomorrow, with the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office search and rescue coordinator to make a plan to pull it out, he said.
He has no idea how long it’s been there.
McLeod said it is a creek off the Newaukum River, on private property, but wouldn’t disclose the location.
“I don’t want people going there,” he said.
It could be that it washed out of a burial spot on private property upstream or it could be something that someone owned and was never used, he said.
McLeod said he’s been making inquiries and is unaware of any public cemetery in the area, but he is checking with the county health department which would have registered any burials on private property.
The lid is damaged, he said, and it’s even a possibility any remains it contained have escaped. He won’t know until they retrieve it, he said.
McLeod said he has learned that steel caskets sometimes have a tube attached to the exterior, inside which a funeral director would have placed identifying documents if it had been used for a burial.
It was found by somebody who likes to fish on the Newaukum, and was out walking on a neighbor’s property checking out damage from the last flood, he said.