After 15 years of research and investigation, officials in Delaware have determined the identity of the person whose remains were discovered in Wilmington’s Sellers Park on June 5, 2011. The remains belonged to 29-year-old Hannah Graham Kleitz, who died of illness in 1907, officials said. According to the New Castle County Police, the investigation started 15 years ago when a human skull and various human remains were discovered in a wooded area of Sellers Park, off of Edgemoor Road in Wilmington. An investigation began and it was initially determined that the remains belonged to a woman who was between 25 and 50 years old. However, investigators were initially unable to identify the woman who the remains belonged to, and the case went cold. Then, in 2019, investigators reviewed the case, looking for new answers and a three-dimensional scan of the skull was made, followed by the creation of a facial reconstruction from the scan in an attempt to help police determine the woman’s identity. At the time, officials said, investigators reached out to people across the country in an effort to determine the unidentified woman’s ancestral information or potential DNA profile. This investigation, officials said, bore fruit earlier this year when, in January, police said, investigators learned of a potential familial connection through a genealogic tree. Investigators then contacted extended relatives of Kleitz — whose mausoleum and grave at Riverview Cemetery in Wilmington, Del., was accessed and desecrated in 2002. With the support of the family, forensic investigators were able to compare DNA profiles and positively identify the human remains found at Sellers Park as Kleitz, who officials said was “a 29-year-old woman who died in 1907 from a medical illness.” Following many years of investigation, officials said, on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, officials involved in the investigation joined members of Kleitz’s extended family to return her remains to the mausoleum in Riverview Cemetery. ...read more read less