Oct. 21, 1999

There are fascinating new clues about a mysterious skeleton found last year inside a St. George cave.

A private detective still hasn't figured out who the victim was. But he thinks he knows where the boy worked, and why he died.

John Hollenhorst has a most interesting story.

The haunting mystery of Webb Hill began last winter near some antennaes. Three teeenagers climbed into a cave and found a skeleton.

Why would a young boy die, a long time ago, in such a lonely place?

In February, Jesse Adams of Bloomington Hills told us, "I just hope someone finds out who he is."

When private eye Todd Gabler heard that St. George police were going to close the case, he volunteered, saying, "Well, first of all, I love a fascinating mystery."

He recruited an anthropologist and a medical examiner to look more closely at the bones. They shot down one theory: There was no skull fracture, just erosion, after death.

Gabler says, "Homicide is the least likely cause of death."

Dental evidence pinpointed the age. Exactly 15. Clothing evidence strongly pointed to 1917 as the year of his death.

His ribs showed telltale signs of a massive lung infection, possibly pneumonia.

"The most likely scenario is that he felt sick," Gabler says, "that he thought he could probably get well if he covered up and stayed warm. And he didn't."

Even 80 years ago, this wasn't just empty desert below antennae hill. For awhile there was an oil drilling rig. Detectives now believe it's likely the boy was an out-of-stater who came to work here.

An overdeveloped right arm socket suggests repeated use of a heavy tool like a sledgehammer, possibly from pounding explosives into a drill hole.

St. George police now tentatively accept Gabler's theory: A transient oil worker with no local friends got sick and wandered away.

Detective Richard Triplett of the St. George Police Department concludes, "He holed up in that cave and he died."

And nobody missed him?

"Nobody missed him enough to report him," Triplett says. "You know, they probably figured he just moved on down, went to work somewhere else, or something like that."

The case is still open. Gabler is still trying to put a name and face on the bones.

The detectives are hopeful of finding a name. They've just learend the oil company is still in existence, and still has payroll records dating back to 1914.