Girl brings skulls to show-and-tell

COVINA, Calif. -- A 12-year-old girl brought three human skulls to her school for show-and-tell, authorities said.

The girl claims she obtained the skulls from her grandmother, who allegedly found them in the trash at her mobile home park, police said.

After reading a newspaper article on Saturday, Catherine Knoll of Duarte contacted Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and said the skulls had belonged to her late husband, said sheriff's Lt. David Brown.

"She said her late husband, William Knoll, had acquired the skulls in Europe in 1967 and returned to the United States with them," he said. "She was moving so she decided she didn't want them any more. She disposed of them in the nearest trash container, which is where they were found."

"All three are almost 100 percent intact," Covina police Sgt. Tim Doonan said.

The girl, who was not identified, took the skulls to Royal Oak Intermediate School in Covina and showed them to her teacher. The student asked if they were real and if she could use them for a science project.

"They looked real to me," said John Roach, superintendent at Charter Oak Unified School District, who saw the skulls before they were taken away by police.

The skulls are scheduled to be examined as early as Monday by a coroner's anthropologist.