Mystery of 'Human Finger' Found on Beach Solved

Last week a man walking along a beach in northern Australia found what appeared to be a severed human finger and wondered if he may have stumbled across a crime scene.

According to an ABC News article, “The man was walking his dog along the beach at Lee Point, north of Darwin, when the animal took an interest in the object. The man feared he had discovered the remains of a murder victim and quickly called Northern Territory Police.”

Grisly, Grizzly, or Just Gross?

While some unfortunate beachcombers do sometimes come across washed up body parts, it’s very rare. The phenomenon of people finding apparently gruesome human body parts that turn out to be something else is not as unusual as it may seem. Decomposing bear bones and paws, for example, have sometimes been mistaken for human hands and fingers because the ursine skeletal structure in the paws is similar to that of humans.

It's clear why the police took the report seriously; obviously anything that might be human remains could be important homicide evidence until proven not to be.

In his book "Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques," veteran homicide detective Vernon Geberth notes that "Practically speaking, law enforcement personnel should consider all pieces of skeleton human until experts determine otherwise. For example, parts of bear paws are misidentified more often as human than any other animal. In addition, many animal skeletons lacking the telltale skull have been thought to be those of a small child."

The confusion is not merely hypothetical, and it’s not uncommon. In 2004 a West Virginia man discovered what looked like a human hand at a car wash; police at first believed it was a child’s hand but the state forensics lab determined it was a decomposed bear paw. The grisly discovery of what seemed to be a child’s foot found in Queens, N.Y., in 2011 also turned out, thankfully, to be a bear paw.

Solving the Mystery

In this case the weird fingerlike thing on the Darwin beach wasn’t from a bear or other mammal; a police pathologist determined that while it was organic it was not in fact a human digit, lacking skin or bones. It was initially thought to be a type of coral called Alcyonium digitatum, otherwise known as “dead man’s fingers.” A search of images for the coral did reveal a resemblance, and some called it case closed.

Read more at Discovery News