The first third of the book is all about Owsley, portraying him as an Indiana Jones-style scientist.
The middle third of the book is about the discovery of the bones and people like Chatters and Benton County Coroner Floyd Johnson and their initial conflict with federal authorities. .
The last third is about the lawsuit. With deft portraits of lawyers, Benedict makes it read like a legal thriller. The Connecticut author is a king in court. .
In a sense, Benedict is a literary forensics expert, looking at the aging evidence to make an issue vividly come to life.
Groups to check human remains .
This story was published Friday, January 24th, 2003.
By Mike Lee Herald staff writer.
American Indians, police and the Army Corps of Engineers are investigating the discovery of "apparently human remains" near McNary Dam on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. .
There was little information immediately available about the condition or age of the remains. However, the discovery has echoes of the Kennewick Man find in Columbia Park in 1996 that sparked a national controversy about inadvertent discoveries of ancient skeletons. .
"This one is still emerging, and so it's way too early to jump to any conclusions," said Dutch Meier, spokesman for the Corps' Walla Walla District. .
"We have yet to get a definitive interpretation of whether it is a crime scene or something else," Meier said. .
However, a Corps news release Thursday stated that the agency is working with other agencies "to protect the scene, which is consistent with Native American sites in the region." .
The remains were reported to the Corps on Tuesday by an official from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. .
"The Corps in the region had numerous similar discoveries in the past, and we expect that it will happen again in the Walla Walla District," said Lt. Col. Edward Kertis Jr., district commander. .
Depending on the age of the remains, there are several laws that might apply to how they are handled, including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, both of which came into play after Kennewick Man was found.
