A Long Island man who dug up bones in the basement of his childhood home learned Wednesday the remains belonged to his father, a Korean War veteran who mysteriously vanished decades ago and may have been murdered.
Suffolk County police announced Wednesday the remains were George Carroll and his death was classified as a homicide, Newsday reported. The father of four and U.S. Army Korean War veteran disappeared in the 1960s and a missing-person report most likely was never filed.
Michael Carroll, 57, previously told Fox News his sons found the remains, now identified as his own father, on Oct. 30 after digging a 6-foot hole and breaking through a cinder block wall that had been part of an old water well. He then began the search for his father and enlisted the help of psychics and ghost hunters, who pointed to the basement of his childhood home.
LONG ISLAND MAN WHO FOUND BONES IN HIS BASEMENT OPENS UP ABOUT GRISLY FIND
Officials found the skull was fractured by blunt force trauma, though it’s unclear if that occurred posthumously.
Many questions remain unanswered, including who buried George Carroll and how he died. The veteran was in his 20s when he disappeared.
Michael Carroll, 57, at his home in Lake Grove, L.I. (Fox News)
George Carroll bought the home on Olive Street in Lake Grove, about 60 miles east of Manhattan, in 1955 and lived there with his wife Dorothy and their four children — two boys and two girls -- until he disappeared. Dorothy Carroll sold it to Michael Carroll, her son, in 1993.
Michael Carroll said his mother told him and his three siblings that his father left the house one day and never returned. He added that he never wanted to believe his father abandoned him and his three older siblings when they were younger.
“My family is really broken from this,” he previously told Fox News.
MYSTERY DEEPENS AS SKULL FOUND BURIED IN LONG ISLAND BASEMENT SHOWS SIGNS OF BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA
Carroll said the person who may have known something about his missing father is Richard Darress, who married his mother, but added: “I’m trying to avoid pointing a finger at this point.”
Darress died in June in Laredo, Texas, at the age of 77, a funeral home there told Fox News. Before he died he had been living in Mexico, across the border from Laredo.
“He would have been someone we would have wanted to speak with,” Lt. Kevin Beyrer, commander of the Suffolk Police homicide squad, told Newsday last month.
Fox News' Robert Gearty contributed to this report.
