The skeletal remains discovered in a creepy shed across from a New Hampshire state prison were identified as a wanted sex offender, according to officials and reports.
Concord Police received an anonymous tip on April 21 that there was a skeleton in the ramshackle structure across from the prison. Officers responded and discovered the bones later learned to be Michael Schilz, 59.
“The body of the deceased subject appeared to have been within the shed for an extended period of time,” Concord Police said in a news release.
It’s unclear when Schliz died or how long his body was in the seemingly abandoned building. He had never been reported as a missing person to Concord Police, Deputy Chief Barrett Moulton told the Concord Monitor.
The bones were delivered to Concord Hospital and an autopsy was performed. On Monday, the remains were identified as Schilz, a homeless man and once the New Hampshire Department of Corrections’ “Fugitive of the Week” in 2023 for violating his parole.
In the 2023 posting, the Department of Corrections featured a picture of a balding, bearded Schilz, wearing a blank expression.
The state sex offender registry lists the dead man, who was convicted in 2005 of aggravated felonious sexual assault on a minor, as living unhoused in Concord, according to the Concord Monitor.
Officials have not yet identified a cause of death.
The shed where his remains were discovered resembles something out of a Stephen King novel, both by its haunted looks and its dark history. It sits facing North State Street surrounded by brambles and leafless trees. An old, crooked basketball hoop is fixed above the entryway near a black-and-yellow “Warning: No trespassing” sign. The back faces onto a murky pond with splotches of algae.
In 2005, the property where the shed sits was the site of a fatal arson. The murder by arson had been a cold case until police made an arrest some 13 years later in 2018. Other than the spooky shed, the property has been largely empty since, according to the Concord Monitor.
Employees at a massage parlor next to the property said they couldn’t believe it when they heard about the discovery.
“We are just shocked and surprised,” an employee told WMTW 8.
