April 18: Discovery of Bemidji victim's skull brings jolt of grief

It seemed a cruel joke when Ricky McGuire's family received a phone call on April Fool's Day informing them that 30 years after his murder, the teenager's skull had been found in the garage of a former assistant medical examiner.

But the ghastly news was true.

For three decades, they had thought that the Bemidji, Minn., teenager's body had been buried intact in a casket that had been sealed shut due to the grisly nature of his death: He'd been shot three times in the face and chest and left in the woods over the winter, to be discovered five months later.

Two weeks ago, authorities phoned Ricky's elderly mother at her Florida home and gave her three options: Let authorities dispose of the skull, cremate it or exhume Ricky's body and bury it with his remains.

"My mom was really sobbing," said Penny Peronnet, Ricky's older sister, who now lives in Russellville, Ark. "It should've never happened."

Somehow, Ricky's fragmented skull was retained at the Hennepin County medical examiner's office after his autopsy there in April 1978.

It was reassembled at some point and apparently sent in a cardboard box with two other skulls to the home of assistant medical examiner Dr. Kenneth Osterberg after a massive stroke in September 1978 ended his career.

"He certainly wasn't a bad person or anything," Ricky's sister, Pam Sanders, of Minnetonka, said of Osterberg. "I think he was just focusing on their scientific value."

Sanders said the family had not given permission for anyone to keep the skull. Officials from the Hennepin County medical examiner's office could not be reached for comment.

Osterberg's daughter, Marin Kopper, discovered the skulls in August or September of last year in her mother's hangar-sized garage in Mentor, Minn. Kopper said she's not certain why her father, who died in 2000, had the skulls. He specialized in neuropathology and was teaching at the University of Minnesota medical school at the time, she said.

"My heart goes out to this family," Kopper said. "I feel really bad about what happened."

Kopper contacted the medical examiner's office a few months later, and the skulls were retrieved this year. Authorities plan to conduct a thorough search of the property this spring.

A case number on Ricky's skull traced it back to his murder case.

Ricky disappeared Nov. 17, 1977, after leaving on a partridge hunt with a longtime friend, George Stewart Dahl. Both were 17-year-old Bemidji High School seniors. Their friendship had been strained after a trip to Europe that summer, Sanders said, and was slowly splintering.

When Ricky failed to come home, Dahl told authorities the boys canceled the hunt because of snow and eventually went their separate ways in town, she said.

Ricky's family held onto the hope that he had simply left home, although he had little reason to do so -- he had a girlfriend, a reputation as an accomplished runner and football player and a tight-knit family that doted on him as the fifth of six children.

"He was a smart kid," Peronnet said. "He was pretty popular."

Body found in the woods

Months passed. On April 8, 1978, Ricky's body was found in a wooded area near his family's home. Dahl was immediately arrested and pleaded guilty to the murder in 1980. He served prison time until 1985 and died in an accident in the early 1990s, Sanders said.

A lack of local forensic services meant that Ricky's autopsy was performed in Hennepin County, where his skull stayed when his family buried him on April 12, 1978.

"It's just a very important part of the body," Sanders said. "We were all pretty traumatized" to find out it wasn't in his casket.

Sanders said her mother called an employee who worked at the funeral home that handled Ricky's service and was told his remains had arrived sealed shut. No one viewed his remains after they left the medical examiner, Sanders said.

The medical examiner's office has offered its apologies and has been sensitive and cooperative, she said, adding that current officials said they were equally shocked by the discovery.

Hennepin County medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker told KARE11 that his office has a good idea about the second skull's identity. The third skull remains unidentified, he said.

The news dredged up the heartbreak from the past, but also planted a seed of fresh curiosity in Ricky's family members. With their overwhelming grief somewhat dimmed by the passage of time, they have grown more receptive to reading police and autopsy reports from his case. The questions that hurt too much to ask so many years ago have become easier to ponder.

They're learning, for example, that although they were optimistic that Ricky was fine when he disappeared, authorities suspected foul play from the very start.

"Now, we're in a better place to see some of these details without being as traumatized as we would've been," Sanders said. "It kind of helps with the closure."

Next week, Sanders, her daughter and Peronnet will gather at Ricky's graveside to witness the exhumation. They'll quietly rebury him with little fanfare or ceremony, they said.

Then, come Mother's Day weekend, their widowed mother and the rest of their siblings, most of whom live out of state, will gather for a small, private memorial.

"I'm sure that when we get to the gravesite, it'll be like we're reliving all of it," said Peronnet, who was the last family member to see Ricky alive. "It's strange and sad."

Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391