A Minnesota man who worked as a funeral director in the early 2000s has been charged in connection with a human skull that was discovered more than two decades ago in a ravine in Wisconsin near a Boy Scout camp.
Benjamin Carl Hanson, 57, of Bayport, was arrested Wednesday and charged with hiding a corpse and felony theft over $2,500.
The skull, which was found in St. Croix County in 2002, belonged to Alyce Catharina Peterson, who died at the age of 92 in July 2001, according to the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department.
According to court documents obtained by KARE11, Hanson was employed as a funeral director at Simonet Funeral Home at the time the skull was discovered.
Peterson reportedly suffered a medical emergency and was cremated at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Maplewood, Minnesota. Her family was given her ashes.
On October 19, 2002, a group of Boy Scouts hiking at a camp in Somerset Township, Wisconsin, discovered garbage bags containing human remains and called the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department.
DNA testing was conducted, but the remains could not be identified at the time, and the case eventually went cold.
Years later, in February 2021, the skull was sent to Astrea Forensics in Santa Cruz, California, for advanced DNA testing. With help from the DNA Doe Project, investigators identified the remains as belonging to Peterson.
“This is the first time that I have seen a Doe identified as someone who had a death certificate and who was supposedly cremated,” case manager Eric Hendershott said. “The fact that Alyce’s skull ended up where it did was a real shock, but I’m glad that the team was able to identify her and reunite her with her family.”
Former Simonet Funeral Home employees were interviewed, and investigators were told that Hanson was suspected of stealing from the business, was fired, and later became the subject of a harassment order after swerving his vehicle toward his replacement, according to the criminal complaint. That order was denied.
One former employee told investigators he covered for Hanson during the summer of 2001 while Hanson was hospitalized after “going off the deep end.”
Another employee reported Hanson used the funeral home’s credit card to purchase school supplies, lawnmower parts, and to pay for HVAC work at his residence.
Details of how the skull ended up in the ravine or what actions Hanson is alleged to have taken have not been revealed. St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson said in a statement that no additional information will be released while the case is active.
The current owners of Simonet Funeral Home did not own the business at the time of Hanson’s alleged misconduct, it was reported.
An attorney for the funeral home released a statement expressing their “deepest empathies to the family of Alice Peterson,” according to KARE.
“We are both saddened and angry at the situation as it is not how professional funeral directors conduct themselves,” the statement continued. “The current owners want the families we serve to understand that the events in question took place back in 2001, 12 years prior to when the current owners purchased Simonet Funeral Home in 2013.”
The statement clarified that “the person who is alleged to have engaged in illegal conduct has never been an employee of the current owners of Simonet Funeral Home,” and that “at all times the current owners have fully cooperated with law enforcement and will continue to do such.”
Hanson is being held at the St. Croix County Jail.
