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LISBON -- An unidentified male who washed up dead on the shore of the Ohio River in Wellsville last year was finally laid to rest this week at the Columbiana County Cemetery off of County Home Road.
County Commissioner Tim Weigle reported Wednesday that the man whose identity remains unknown was the latest indigent burial at the cemetery.
The commissioners are responsible for the cemetery which has graves dating back to the late 1800s and the county must pay for indigent burials. He thanked Roberts Funeral Home of Wellsville for handling the arrangements for the unknown man and the county engineer's office for excavating the grave.
Commissioner Mike Halleck thanked Weigle and Weigle's wife for taking care of the cemetery. He noted that the price paid for burials used to be set at $750 and hasn't really increased that much. Weigle said it's up to $1,000 now.
Two local funeral homes used to alternate handling the burials and when Halleck first started as a commissioner, the commissioners used to have an opening day on Memorial Day at the cemetery. He recalled when the late commissioner John Wargo told him it was his turn, so he and a couple of scouts held an opening ceremony.
The unidentified man was the first indigent burial for this year. There were three in 2023, with the most recent in November. Sometimes there can be a few years between burials.
Chief Investigator Brandi Phillips of the county coroner's office said the man was found on April 5, 2023 and sent to the medical examiner's office in Cleveland for an autopsy. His fingerprints have been sent through local and federal databases and they also have his DNA, but "nothing has matched. We have no idea who he is."
He was described as an African-American male weighing 189 pounds and 69 inches tall (5 feet 9 inches). Phillips said his cause of death was undetermined and they're just trying to look for his family. The plan is to do familial DNA testing on him through the Ohio Bureau of Investigation, but there's a backlog so she estimated the testing may not be done until the end of summer.
She said it's sad.
The case is being investigated by the Wellsville Police Department. Anyone with information should call Wellsville Police at 330-532-1522 or the coroner's office at 330-424-5029.
When asked how many graves are located at the county cemetery, Weigle wouldn't hazard a guess because they don't have all the records. Many graves have markers but there are spots where they believe there are graves that are not marked. The plan is to catalog the graves using ground penetrating radar equipment.
In another matter, Weigle reported the Veterans Service Commission recently acquired a new transport van and donated an old one to the county for use by the coroner's office for transport. The coroner's officer had to use transport services previously.