200-year-old skull found in Burlingame

BURLINGAME, CA A human skull found in a Dumpster outside a Burlingame hotel on Friday morning is about 200 years old, police said today. San Bruno Garbage Company workers called the Burlingame Police Department at about 8:30 a.m. Friday after they discovered the skull while emptying their trucks of a morning load, according to Burlingame police Cmdr. Mike Matteucci. Despite its age, the skull "is in very good shape and very clean," Matteucci said. After talking with the garbage collectors, police determined the skull had been taken from a dumpster outside Burlingame's only Hyatt Regency, located at 1333 Bayshore Highway near the San Francisco International Airport, at about 5:45 a.m. that day, Matteucci said. One worker said a cache of Halloween items was inside the same dumpster as the skull, according to Matteucci. Matteucci could not elaborate on the types of Halloween products found. Officials' next step is to find out the exact age of the skull and how the person died, Matteucci said. If the skull belongs to a murdered person, it would be very unlikely to solve an unfinished crime, according to Matteucci. "The problem is, it's 200 years old, so it (would) to be tough to find any witnesses to that one," Matteucci said, chuckling. "Suspects, gone. Witnesses, gone." Police questioned the garbage workers who found the skull in addition to various people at the hotel, but "nobody really knows anything," Matteucci said. Matteucci said final reports from the coroner's office should be available within the next few weeks.