A dog-walker in Tennessee helped lead investigators to the discovery of unidentified remains of three young children in a case that Memphis’ police chief is calling “disturbing.” 

The Memphis Police Department revealed Wednesday that an investigation has been ongoing since March 8 after the remains of the children, believed to be between the ages of 3 and 7 years old, were found in an area near a church and elementary school. 

“Someone knows of missing children that we have discovered in this area,” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said. “This is heartbreaking, it’s disturbing and at this time we have numerous resources to help us to identify these young people and bring closure to this investigation.” 

Davis added that authorities suspect the bones, which were found in a “heavily vegetated area,” have been there for a few years and there “is no indication of any active threat to our public.”

SKELETAL REMAINS FOUND BY HIKERS IN WASHINGTON STATE WOODS IDENTIFIED AS WOMAN MISSING SINCE 2024

The Memphis Police Department released photos of investigators searching through the woods. 

“The operation involves approximately 170 personnel and is being carried out in collaboration with the Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office, with assistance from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, federal partners, and the Memphis Fire Department,” the department said in a statement. “Investigators are conducting a systematic and methodical search of a defined area between Ridgeway Road and Winchester Road in an effort to locate additional evidence.” 

Police say the investigation began on March 8 after an anonymous caller “reported a possible human skull near a wooded area” and “responding officers located what appeared to be a human skull at the edge of the woods.”

INVESTIGATION CONTINUES AFTER HUNDREDS OF CREMATED HUMAN REMAINS DISCOVERED, RECOVERED FROM NEVADA DESERT

A few days later, “cadaver K9 units alerted to a nearby drainage pipe, indicating the possible presence of additional human remains,” police said. 

On April 1, investigators found what “appeared to be an additional skull” inside the drainage system, and the following day, “search teams conducted another coordinated canvass, resulting in the recovery of fourteen additional bones consistent with human remains,” Memphis police also said. 

“Identification is ongoing, and investigators are working to determine both the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding their deaths,” police added.

Laquita Singleterry, a local parent, told FOX 13 Memphis that the discovery is “really heartbreaking.”

“And I really hope they find out who they belong to,” she said. 

“I feel sorry for those children,” added parent Tonya Richmond. “It’s really sad that it happened in the community right across from a school… someone would dump children.” 

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Confessed serial killer Rex Heuermann’s ex-wife revealed she has moved into the “kill room” he set up in their basement, and where he admitted to killing seven of his eight known victims, according to her own words in a docuseries.

Asa Ellerup reveals it in the latest episode of “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets” on Peacock, which first streamed Thursday morning.

“The brutal truth is that Rex Heuermann said he dismembered the bodies in this room,” she says in the episode. “That is the brutal truth. OK. Now. There’s me. I’m in this room. And I’m here because I do feel spiritual. I am trying to say spiritually, in my own way, that I am really sorry for what these victims went through.”

GILGO BEACH SERIAL KILELR REX HEUERMANN PLEADS GUILTY

She moved down there roughly a month before her ex-husband pleaded guilty, and said she’d visited him 12 times after he confessed privately to her.

“Every night that I go to bed and go to sleep, I am haunted by dreams,” she says. “It will never go away. It will follow me for the rest of my life. It will never be any justice for anyone, and there will never be any way to forget about this.”

Still, she says, she wanted to understand her ex-husband, at least psychologically.

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“I want to know why Rex killed these women, what his triggers were,” Ellerup says. “I’m processing the information in a very different way. Because now I see the evil in him.”

Her lawyer, Bob Macedonio, told Fox News Digital he believed she was still struggling with the fact that her husband of many years was living a double life as one of the most prolific serial killers in decades.

REX HEUERMANN’S FAMILY KEPT GRUESOME PIECE OF EVIDENCE, SOURCE SAYS

“Not so much in the sense that she wants to know Rex the serial killer, she wants to know that side of Rex and also get to know herself and how she missed all this in 30 years,” he said. “She wants to know herself, not so much who Rex is.”

Ellerup also described the moment her husband confessed his crimes to her, ahead of his change of plea hearing earlier this month. He admitted to killing eight victims, and at the time he had only been charged with seven.

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On April 8, Heuermann, a 62-year-old former New York City architect, pleaded guilty to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla, and Valerie Mack. He confessed to an eighth, uncharged murder, of Karen Vergata. All of the slayings took place between 1993 and 2010.

“This has been an extremely emotional and painful process for the family to endure and come to terms with the allegations that Rex Heuermann was the Gilgo Beach serial killer,” Ellerup’s attorney, Bob Macedonio, said in a statement. “Ms. Ellerup would like the focus to remain where it belongs — on the victims and their families, who have suffered immeasurable and lasting losses.”

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Each of the victims had been strangled. Some were tortured. Three were dismembered. Most were found to the east of Gilgo Beach, on Ocean Parkway about 45 miles outside New York City. Some were scattered across multiple locations. Costilla, the first victim, was found in the Hamptons less than 48 hours after her disappearance in late November 1993.

She’s the only one Heuermann didn’t kill in his Massapequa Park home.

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He killed her in a vehicle that police recovered decades later in Pennsylvania, according to a source close to the family.

Heuermann was arrested outside his midtown Manhattan office in July 2023 and had maintained his innocence for nearly three years. A trial had been set for September.

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His killing spree went unknown for decades, until a 23-year-old woman named Shannan Gilbert vanished under alarming circumstances in 2010. She had placed numerous 911 calls, sounding heavily inebriated and begging for help after leaving a home in Oak Beach, which is down the road from Gilgo.

The search for her turned up the remains of 10 other people — seven of whom Heuermann has admitted to killing.

Suffolk County police have publicly described Gilbert’s death as an accidental drowning. The deaths of another victim, 26-year-old Tanya Jackson, and her 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Dykes, have been blamed on a Florida man who was arrested last year.

Andrew Dykes has pleaded not guilty in that case and is due back in court in Nassau County Friday.

Rita Wilson is opening up about a painful chapter of her family’s history.

During a recent appearance on the “How to Fail with Elizabeth Day” podcast, the actress shared that her father had a wife and child in Bulgaria before meeting her mother.

“I did this show — it’s an English show, ‘Who Do You Think You Are,'” the 69-year-old said. “Usually, in those genealogy shows, they go back many, many generations. But what they found with my dad was that his story was so shocking and unusual that they stuck with his story.”

The star further recalled traveling to Bulgaria for the show, and after visiting the Hall of Records, news of her father’s secret family came to light.

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Upon learning that she had a sibling she previously had no knowledge of, Wilson was filled with excitement at the possibility of meeting a new family member. She then quickly learned about her father’s tragic backstory.

“My dad’s first wife, whose name was Alice, gave birth on Dec. 26, and she died three days later due to complications from delivery,” Wilson explained. “Her son, and my dad’s son, Emil, lived for four months. This was right after the war, and then he passed away. I don’t know the name of it, but it was like an infection.”

The “Now and Then” star then explained that both she and her sister gave birth to one of their children on Dec. 26, telling the podcast host that, looking back, “I think of my dad, all of those years, celebrating all those birthdays, and knowing that he had a child born on Dec. 26, Emil, who passed away.”

Wilson’s father died in 2009 at the age of 89 and never told the actress or other family members about his previous life.

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“I still can’t get over that. He never said anything to us,” she explained. “I wish I could’ve talked to him about that. They kept things so private.”

She previously discussed this family secret during an interview on “The BobbyCast” podcast in October 2022. In the interview, she shared that following the death of his wife and son, “he tried to escape Bulgaria. I think just out of sheer unhappiness.”

The patriarch was caught during his escape attempt and sent to a labor camp. After tricking a guard while on the night shift, he was able to run away with a fellow inmate. Wilson noted they “eventually got away [and] made their way to Turkey.”

“My dad got a job on a freighter boat shoveling coal and made his way to Philadelphia and jumped the ship,” she said. “But what he did was he took Richard with him as a stowaway because there was no work for Richard. And so, he was stowed away in basically the engine room. And Richard and my dad made it to America.”

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Eventually, Wilson’s father met and married her mother. They went on to have three children, including Wilson, her sister Lily and her brother Chris.

Wilson went on to find success as an actress and married Oscar winner Tom Hanks in April 1988. They share two sons, Chet and Truman Hanks. She is also a stepmother to his two children from a previous marriage, Colin and Elizabeth.