SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - A human skeleton retrieved from California's second-highest mountain this month may be the remains of a Japanese-American man who died in 1945 as part of a fishing party from the Manzanar internment camp.
The Inyo County Sheriff's Department says that is among the possibilities being investigated after the bones were discovered Oct. 7 by two hikers.
One of the hikers spotted a bleached skull in the rocks on Mount Williamson and then uncovered the entire remains.
Matsumura's fate is a footnote to the dark U.S. history chapter when more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were herded into prison camps amid fear they would side with their ancestral homeland in the war.
Matsumara's gravesite wasn't mapped, so his final resting place has been a mystery that prompted some hikers to search for them.
