Human skull found in crawl space of Rock Hill business

ROCK HILL, S.C. — A contractor working at a building on Oakland Avenue discovered a human skull in the crawl space, and the Rock Hill Police Department is investigating the incident.

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Officers were called around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, to an attorney’s office after workers renovating the property found the remains in the crawl space.

The company doing the work is based in Kannapolis. Contractor Phillip Shipp thought the skull was fake.

“It definitely messed me up,” Shipp said. “It shook me for a little bit.”

He thought it was a Halloween decoration.

“I told my coworker. I said, ‘Hey man, I think I found a human skull,’” Shipp said. “He was like, ‘Nah, man. There’s no way.’ So, I snapped back, went back to work, moved it, put it in the trash can, whatever. And as soon as I picked it up, I knew it was real.”

It was heavy and dense.

“You hold a Halloween skull. It’s light. A few ounces,” he said. “This had some considerable amount of weight to it.”

It was then that Shipp knew the gravity of the situation.

“It was very scary,” Shipp said. “I’m kind of shaking just thinking about it.”

He explained why he was on edge.

“That person was a soul,” Shipp said. “He loved. He ate. He loved.”

Shipp immediately told his boss.

“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s real. Definitely call authorities,’” Shipp said. “When we arrived, police were on the scene right away.”

Shipp hopes his discovery will make a difference to someone out there.

“I would definitely like to know, and I hope whatever family he belongs to, gains some type of closure, saying, ‘Hey, we found him,’” Shipp said.

Todd Houlbrook owns Case To Case Crawlspace and said this was the second set of human remains in Rock Hill they’ve discovered.

“Which is wild, because we’re based out of Kannapolis,” Houlbrook said. “So, we’re an hour away.”

Channel 9 doesn’t know if the remains belong to a victim of a crime.

Rock Hill Police sent the remains to a forensic anthropologist and are waiting for the results, which will determine the next steps in the investigation.

This is a developing story. Check back with wsoctv.com for updates.