Skele­tal re­mains were dis­cov­ered in a cof­fin at the San­ta Rosa Ro­man Catholic ceme­tery in Ari­ma on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice said the ceme­tery su­per­vi­sor found an open cof­fin con­tain­ing what ap­peared to be a hu­man skull. He re­port­ed the mat­ter to church sec­re­tary Tiffany Galin­do, who then con­tact­ed po­lice.

Of­fi­cers went to the north-west­ern side of the ceme­tery, where they found a small cof­fin with a skull, cloth­ing, Hin­du pic­tures, mur­tis, oils and can­dles.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Ra­haman ar­rived lat­er and con­firmed the skull, which was miss­ing its jaw, and a fe­mur bone were hu­man re­mains.

Around 8.30 pm, un­der­tak­ers from Simp­sons Memo­r­i­al Ltd col­lect­ed the re­mains and took them to their East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille of­fice.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the scene was processed and CCTV footage from the area is be­ing re­viewed.