Memphis police investigate remains of three children found in wooded area

The discovery in Hickory Hill has turned into an investigation into how the remains of three young children could have stayed hidden in southeast Memphis for so long. Police say the bones may have been in the wooded area near Ridge Meadow Parkway and Ridgeway Road for years, with no identification yet for the children.

The case began on March 8, 2026, after a person walking a dog reported what appeared to be a human skull. Memphis police and the Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office then searched the area over the following days and weeks, widening the effort in and around a wooded stretch that also included a drainage area. Investigators later recovered two skulls and 14 bones, and police said no other items beyond bone fragments had been found.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said the remains are believed to be those of three children between the ages of 3 and 7. Davis, who has led the department since 2021 and is the city’s first female police chief, said the scene remains under investigation. The FBI is assisting Memphis police as detectives work to determine whether the deaths were homicides and whether the remains match any missing children cases.

The location deepens the concern. Hickory Hill is a large neighborhood in southeast Memphis, and the recovery site sits near roads, drainage systems and residential areas where activity might be expected to expose a burial or concealment site. Instead, investigators are now trying to reconstruct how remains of such young children could have gone undetected in a public area long enough for police to describe them as possibly there for a few years.

For Shelby County authorities, the case now depends on forensic work as much as field search efforts. The medical examiner’s office is handling the recovery process, while Memphis homicide investigators and federal agents try to identify the children and establish when and how they died. Until then, the case stands as a stark failure of detection, reporting and oversight in a place where someone finally noticed what had apparently been hidden in plain sight.