The Penn Museum says they have more human remains from the MOVE bombing — three years after university researchers first uncovered it. Remains of 1985 tragedy preserved.

Penn Museum officials said in a statement Wednesday that they discovered the remains during “a comprehensive inventory of our biology department.” The museum said the remains matched records of Delisha Africa, who was 12 when she was killed along with 10 other members of the Black liberation and activist group MOVE.

It was the latest development in the decades-long saga surrounding the MOVE bombing and its aftermath, considered one of the ugliest acts of government violence in Philadelphia history, the effects of which still reverberate among survivors, family members and the city at large.

Following the bombing, two researchers at Penn were asked to help identify the remains of bombing victims whose identities were disputed. They kept some relics in the museum for decades – at first an open secret Published in The Inquirer in 2021.

Next News on Billy Penn He said the museum may contain the remains of two children killed in the bombing, Delisha and 14-year-old Katicia Dotson, but independent researchers contracted by the university said in 2022 that the remains of a single victim who had not been positively identified were found at the school.

Those researchers also said the museum had “no credible, factual or scientific evidence” that it possessed the remains of a second child, Delisha Africa.

But the university says Delisha’s remains are now kept in the museum. Brief description of PennPosted on a page with updates on MOVE victims, it did not say how the remains arrived at the museum or which staff member retrieved them first.

It also did not provide detailed information about the nature of the remains or how they were identified as consistent with Delisha Africa.

Penn said they informed the African family about the findings.

“We are committed to full transparency regarding any new evidence that may emerge,” the museum website states.

Although Penn said that the original remains stored in the museum could not be identified, lawyers for Katricia’s brother Lionell Dotson said in their statement that the child’s remains were kept there. They added that they were “disgusted and disappointed, but unfortunately (…) not surprised that more remains were found.”

“For nearly 40 years, the City of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Penn Museum have refused to treat the MOVE Bombing victims or their families with the most basic level of respect and decency, and this latest statement is the latest on this issue. Lawyers Daniel Hartstein and Bakari Sellers say black people in America have to live “a long series of persecutions,” he wrote.

“The damage caused by Penn is absolutely appalling and inexcusable. It’s time for them to do the right thing so these children can finally rest in peace.”

” READ MORE: Brother of two MOVE victims finally gets their remains back from the Medical Examiner’s Office

Years of mistakes

For years, activists and MOVE family members tried to understand what happened to the bodies of MOVE victims, which were stored at the Penn Museum and the city health department.

The problems started almost immediately after 13 May 1985 bombingThe activities of Philadelphia police and their fortified homes are part of an attempt to evict Africans whose fortified homes have sparked a number of complaints in West Philadelphia neighborhoods.

During the day-long conflict, police dropped explosives on the house from a helicopter. The city then allowed the fire to spread to surrounding blocks, gutting 61 homes and leaving hundreds homeless. Six children and five adults in the MOVE house were killed.

After the fire was extinguished, he was referred to the Municipal Forensic Medicine Institute. did not immediately secure the sceneLeaving the Fire Department and police to excavate the ruins with cranes, destroying important evidence and damaging the remains of the victims in the process.

The remains were then passed back and forth between city pathologists, outside consultants, and anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania; They all disagreed on the identity of the remains. The bodies were not delivered to family members for months.

Looking for answers

Janet Monge, former curator of the Penn MuseumIn the 1980s, he worked with his mentor, Penn anthropology professor Alan Mann, to identify MOVE victims.

The MOVE Commission and the city medical examiner’s office, which investigated the bombing in the immediate aftermath, disagreed over the identity of two sets of remains: The commission believed that one group of bones, labeled “B1,” belonged to Katricia Dotson, and another belonged to Katricia Dotson. The car labeled “G” belonged to Delisha Africa. To resolve the dispute, Mann and Monge were asked to examine them.

An independent review commissioned by Penn later revealed that Mann and Monge had seized bones suspected to be Katricia’s. Mann and Monge were unable to determine whether remains suspected to be Delisha’s were found, and concluded that these bones were never in the museum.

The investigation found that Mann and Monge failed to return bones suspected to be Katricia’s for years, and that they were moved between Penn and Princeton University, where Mann then worked. As recently as 2019, Monge used these bones, a pelvis, and part of a femur as teaching aids in an online video titled “Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology.”

in 2021 activist Abdul-Aliy Muhammad reported in The Inquirer He said anthropologists had preserved some of the remains and called on the school to “apologize and pay compensation”.

A month later, the city health department revealed that the coroner’s office had also left the remains of MOVE victims in a box in the office for decades.

Then-health commissioner Thomas Farley resigned after admitting staff found the box in 2017. He ordered it burned to ease the African family’s pain.. The order was never fulfilled and the box Found shortly after Farley’s resignation.

In 2021, Penn returned the remains shown in the 2019 video, which were not identified by the university’s independent review, to the African family.

“After consultation with some MOVE members and unsuccessful attempts to reach possible relatives, the Penn Museum arranged for the remains featured in the video to be returned to MOVE members on July 2, 2021,” the independent review said.

The city returned the remains, identified as Katricia and Zanetta Dotson, found in a box at the medical examiner’s office. To your brothers in 2022.

Muhammad and several surviving family members of the victims in 2023 held a press conference He claimed he had photographic evidence that Monge had hidden more bone fragments than he had previously told the inquest.

Monge had told researchers hired by Penn and Princeton University, who were working on separate, independent reports on the handling of MOVE victims’ remains, that he had only one victim’s remains.

But Mohammed handed out to reporters a photo of Monge next to several bone fragments and said two people “trained in human osteology” had independently agreed that the remains belonged to Katricia Dotson and Delisha Africa.

At the time, Monge’s lawyer said the allegations were “nothing new” and declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation. Monge’s civil complaint against The Inquirer, Muhammad and other media outletsalleging defamation.

Staff writer Ximena Conde contributed to this article.