This article was published in the George Street Observer's April 1st edition. In case you didn't notice, it is an April Fools Joke. This story is entirely fictitious. We hope that you enjoyed it.

The renovations students see on Randolph Hall and the Cistern are only the surface of recent developments in the center of the campus. Workers descended into the Cistern last week to check piping and found more than 20 skeletons decaying amidst the unused pipes.

Joel Kimball was leading the team of workers when they discovered the skeletons.

“We climbed down there to check out the state of the piping. Our manual flashlights were the only light and we couldn’t tell what we had found until we were in the middle of it,” Kimball said.

The workers assumed the first few scattered bones they saw were rodent remains until they stumbled across a human skull which, upon a closer look, they found was sitting at the top of a full human skeleton.

“We looked around for anything to suggest who these people were or how they got under there,” Kimball said. “We found a few metal chains that could have been restraints around the wrists. But the metal was so rusted, and the bones were so much smaller than the wrist would have been, that we couldn’t be sure.”

The Charleston Police Department began investigating the scene March 27.

“The bodies are so deteriorated that an initial investigation did not reveal anything definitive,” CPD public information officer Shane McCoy said. “We know that the skeletons are female simply based on size. But we need to wait for forensic and carbon tests to go any further at this point.”

Medical examinations and carbon dating concluded that the bones are about 50 years old. Investigators are looking into cases from 1970 that may lead to information about how these skeletons ended up in the Cistern.

Students are anxious to speculate about where these women came from.

“I know there was a serial killer on Folly Beach in the ‘70s. Maybe these girls are earlier victims of his,” freshman Josh Simmons said.

McCoy said CPD is looking into all possibilities.

“We are looking at every open murder, death and disappearance case from this time period,” McCoy said. “We hope that finding out who one of these girls is could lead us toward some answers.”

Kimball and College officials say the discovery will not change the schedule of the Cistern renovations or affect May commencement.

“We are not actually doing work under the Cistern,” Kimball said. “A few bones won’t slow down the process. We will continue work on the façade and the yard will be ready for graduating seniors.”

Some seniors may not be comfortable with getting their degrees on a newly-discovered tomb, but senior Jesse Wheeler says they can just add it to the allure and legend of the historic College.

“The College’s history is what attracted a lot of us here in the first place,” Wheeler said. “Now we not only have the chance to graduate in a crime scene, we can see history unfold right beneath our feet.”