Coffins stir interest from Deadman's Island
BY SCOTT PAGE Gulf Breeze News Scott@gulfbreezenews.com

On Thursday, May 1, a University of West Florida anthropology team and radiology specialists at the Santa Rosa Medical Center in Milton applied fluoroscopic Xray and tomography technology to reveal the secrets of what appeared to be three coffins found on the shore of Deadman's Island in 2005.

The coffins, and a few other smaller pieces of wood, have been submerged in a conservation tank at UWF for the past three years, and left alone for the most part.

"We've been researching the small bits of wood off and on," said Joanne Curtin, an associate professor of anthropology at UWF and consultant for the Medical Examiner's Office. "But this is the first in-depth work we've done on the coffins."

Last week, they were able to look into the century or more old coffins and identify some human skeletal remains.

"The X-rays did show that there was human remains in the compacted mass of wood and roots," Curtin said.

At first, it seemed that the find was no more than pieces of a coffin.

"When we found them, they were very thin so we thought they were a lid or a base of a coffin and the remains had washed away," Curtin said.

Curtin actually helped find the coffins after she was called to the island to analyze a human skull found on the beach.

"There is not much wood left, they are now mostly permeated with roots," Curtin said. "The shape tipped us off. Otherwise, we would have thought they were just masses of decaying wood and roots."

There were six coffins, but three could not be salvaged. They disappeared into Pensacola Bay because of the accelerated erosion of Deadman's Island caused by construction in the bay and storm damage.