Police: No bodies found in Texas "mass grave"

Jun 8, 2011, 3:50 GMT

Washington - Police in the US state of Texas searched a property after receiving a tip-off from a psychic about a mass grave in a rural community north-east of Houston but found only rotting rubbish, local media reports said.

'At the moment, there's no validity to the report,' a state law enforcement source told the Houston Chronicle newspaper. 'There's nothing that matches what the psychic said.'

No bodies were in the house, Liberty County Judge Craig McNair said. Dogs trained to find cadavers took part in the search.

US media had earlier reported a grisly find with 25 to 30 dismembered bodies in the small town of Hardin, but authorities later said no bodies had been recovered and they had only received a tip that led them to the Texas property.

'We have found circumstances that have raised some questions,' sheriff's office spokesman Rex Evans said, but he stressed that no evidence of any bodies had been found.

Blood was found on the property, but the home's owner, Joe Bankson, told the local television station KHOU that blood on his porch was from his daughter's boyfriend who had recently tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide.

'This is like something out of a novel,' Bankson, a 44-year-old trucker, was quoted as saying. 'Finding out that the police are in my yard for dead bodies? That's kinda panicking me. I ain't killed nobody.'

The Houston Chronicle identified the tipster as a psychic who said the mass grave might have contained the bodies of children. The caller did not give a name.