Severed arm found in canal remains mystery

RAYMONDVILLE -- Willacy County sheriff's deputies continued to search for answers Thursday in connection with a severed arm found in a canal earlier this week, Sheriff Larry Spence said.

Officials planned to send DNA samples from the arm - believed to be that of a woman - to a crime lab for analysis, he said.

"We're going to look closer into this to see if we can narrow down the age," Spence said.

The department also was checking missing persons reports, the sheriff said.

"Our local investigators are at the scene again," Spence said. But "they haven't found anything."

Officials also followed up on calls the sheriff's office received Thursday, but they hadn't learned anything new as of that afternoon, Spence said.

The sheriff said he received the call regarding the arm's discovery about noon Tuesday from a county commissioner who was surveying road damage in the area with an official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"What it is is a left arm of a female from the shoulder blade to a finger tip," Spence said at the time. "It's a younger female, not an older woman. About how young we don't exactly know yet."

But he said it is not the arm of a child.