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Contractor Finds Skeleton In River North

UPDATED 10/13/11 5:16 a.m.

CHICAGO (CBS) - A contractor at a River North neighborhood construction site has made a disturbing discovery.

As CBS 2's Susanna Song reports, the contractor found bones in the basement while working at the 19th century building in the 100 block of West Kinzie Street around 10:35 a.m. Wednesday.

It appears the bones were human, but the final verdict will not be in until an examination is completed later Thursday at the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

A Medical Examiner's office representative said the remains might be a human skeleton, but could not speculate beyond that.

Police are also awaiting the examination before they open up an investigation.

The contractor was doing construction work in the basement when he made the discovery.

In a separate case about six and a half hours later, another set of skeletal remains were found in northwest suburban Norridge.

Contractors found those bones around 5 p.m. Wednesday while digging in an alley in the 4000 block of Ozanam Avenue, according to a news release from Norridge police.

Norridge Police collected the remains and sent them to the Medical Examiner's office for analysis, the release said. The medical examiner's office will try to determine if the bones are human.

All of this comes not long after a dog in Hammond, Ind., found human bones in the rubble fo a demolished building.

The bones were found last week by a dog at the Great Lakes Bait and tackle building, 1718 Indianapolis Blvd., which was demolished last week after 10 years of vacancy.

Police said more bones were found about 20 feet from the original dig site. The bones are believed to be that of a woman, and may date back 5 to 10 years.

Hammond police Chief Brian Miller tells WBBM Newsradio that detectives have a identified person of interest in connection to the discovery.

The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.

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