Construction crews renovating a house found a 145-year-old casket containing the remains of a toddler beneath the garage where they were working.
The bronze and lead coffin had two windows that revealed a well-preserved 3-year-old girl who was surrounded by eucalyptus leaves, wearing a white dress and holding a rose, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"I was shocked on one hand, obviously, because there's a small child's casket underneath the home," Ericka Karner, the homeowner, told the Times. "But I wasn't necessarily super surprised, because I knew the history of the area."
Karner lives in the Richmond District which was full of cemeteries in the late 1800s. The child was apparently left behind when thousands of other gravesites were relocated from the area to make way for development in the early 20th century.
"Being a mom, that's unfathomable and sad that a little child could be left behind like that," Karner said.
Karner is working with the group Garden of Innocence, which works to bury abandoned children. The girl's identity is unknown and any cemetery records are likely lost or destroyed.
"We'll find a way to rebury her. What's happened is not right and we'll make it right," Elissa Davey, of Garden of Innocence, told the Times.
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