Construction Site

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. -- The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department was still awaiting answers Friday about a human skull found Thursday morning at the construction site for a new elementary school off Job Corps Road in Jefferson County, W.Va. An anthropologist was studying the skull and was expected to make a report Monday or Tuesday, Detective Tracy Edwards said. The Sheriff's Department was waiting for information on how long the skull might have been at the site, as well as any clues about who it might have come from, such as the age and gender of the deceased, Edwards said.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A shooting victim who was treated early Wednesday in Martinsburg with face and upper arm injuries is being investigated in connection with a shooting that might have occurred during an attempted burglary in Berkeley County, city police said Thursday. Martinsburg City Police responded to a call from City Hospital for an 18-year old Martinsburg resident who was being treated for a gunshot wound. The man later was transferred to Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center, police said.

Hundreds of dollars in tools that were being used by volunteers to build a home through Habitat for Humanity of the Eastern Panhandle were recently stolen from a project site, leaders of the nonprofit organization said Tuesday. “We'd like to get our tools back,” said Brian Truman, the organization's operations director. The theft from a locked storage box at the construction site at Lair Way off Nadenbousch Lane south of Martinsburg was discovered on Monday, Jan. 16, Truman said.

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Woman reports sexual assault A 20-year-old woman reported to the Hagerstown Police Department that she was sexually assaulted Tuesday morning at a home in the 200 block of South Locust Street, police said in a written release. Police said that the woman called police from the Sheetz store in the 300 block of Dual Highway at 12:17 a.m. to report that she just left a residence in the 200 block of South Locust Street where she was physically and sexually assaulted. She was taken to Washington County Hospital for treatment of small scratches to her back, a bruise on her right arm and for a thorough examination for evidence related to sexual assault, police said.

Tools stolen from construction site SMITHSBURG - A complete torch set and accessories were stolen from the construction site at the water treatment plant on Crystal Falls Drive late Tuesday or early Wednesday, the Washington County Sheriff's Department said Thursday. The thefts occurred during the same period as four vehicle break-ins in the Smithsburg area that were reported on Wednesday. The equipment, valued at $1,200, was taken between 5 p.m. Tuesday night and 7 a.m. Wednesday, deputies said.

WASHINGTON COUNTY tarar@herald-mail.com It might look like dirt, but the Hagerstown Regional Airport calls it soil. Whatever the correct term, truckloads of it have been making up a large part of the airport's runway extension project for more than a year. C. William Hetzer Inc. has been hauling the material daily from the 40 West Landfill to Hagerstown Regional Airport since spring of 2004. "They don't call it soil," Commissioner Doris J. Nipps said of airport officials.