Child skeleton found during home renovations in Sweden

People renovating their home in Sweden this weekend discovered the skeleton of a child, triggering a police operation.

"Yesterday, when we were sawing off the ceiling in one of the living rooms, an old, handmade wooden box fell down," the house owner in the town of Tierp told Expressen newspaper on Monday. Tierp is a small municipality north of Stockholm.

It contained a small child's skeleton wrapped in cloth.

The house was built before 1791 and it is assumed that the remains had been hidden there for a long time, the police said.

A forensic investigation is now under way to clarify when and how the child died.

Police are investigating for murder, so long as they cannot exclude the possibility that the crime was committed recently.