Police say the bones were covered in a tarp, and buried in two feet of dirt under the house.
The discovery of human remains found in lower Florence County is being treated as a suspicious death case by police. Thursday evening, a man moving a mobile home on North Old Georgetown Road found the skeletal remains.
Police say the bones were covered in a tarp, and buried in two feet of dirt under the house. At one time, the home belonged to 54-year-old Randy Bratschi, who's been missing for nearly five years.
Since then, police have trudged through swamps and woods in lower Florence County and even brought in cadaver dogs.
Captain Brett Camp, Florence County Sheriff's Office said, "He just completely, you know completely disappeared with no one last seeing him."
Florence County deputies tell us they suspected from day one that Bratschi's disappearance was suspicious. The month before he disappeared, police say Bratschi was brutally beaten by his estranged wife. She was charged with assault and battery with intent to kill. That charge is still pending in court.
Investigators say she's always been a suspect in his disappearance.
"We had many phone calls that came in. Different people had many stories to tell. We listened to them, all those stories," said Camp.
And they followed every lead, but hadn't gotten any solid information in the last few years, that is, until Thursday afternoon. They got a call that human remains were found under Bratschi's mobile home near Coward.
Investigators believe the remains could be Bratschi's said Capt. Mike Nunn with the Florence County Sheriff's Office. "Obviously, the body was placed there by some means. We're not certain exactly how. It probably took some effort to place the body there over time."
