Skeletal remains found at Kitchener construction site

Empty construction equipment sits at a construction site in Kitchener after skeletal remains were found on August 21, 2024. (Dan Lauckner/CTV News)

Skeletal remains were found at a Kitchener construction site on Wednesday, but Waterloo Regional Police said there are no suspicious or criminal concerns.

The bones were uncovered by workers during excavation at Church and Benton Street.

Jeremy Seip, a subcontractor at the site, was operating the excavator equipment when the remains were discovered.

“When I pulled up the bucket I saw something laying in the dirt,” he told CTV News. “I asked my co-worker what it was.”

Seip initially thought it was debris or a broken pipe.

The two workers weren’t sure what they were seeing so they kept digging and filling buckets. Seip then spotted something else in the dirt.

“I asked my colleague again… ‘What is that?’ He walked over and flipped [the bucket] and it happened to be a human jawbone,” he recalled.

Seip said workers knew immediately that it didn’t belong to an animal so they contacted the site supervisor and stopped all construction.

Workers also found other pieces of a skull.

Seip added the location was formerly paved over and the bones looked like they’d been there a long time.

Police called in a forensic anthropologist and chief coroner to help with their investigation at Church and Benton. The Ministry of Public Health has since taken over the case.

Seip said work at the site is now on hold and he’s moved on to other construction jobs.

It is, however, an experience he’s unlikely to forget.

“This was a first for me,” Seip said. “I’ve never found something like that before.”