Imagine this: You are working on a horror film, and need a skeleton. You borrow one from a guy you know. It doesn't look authentic enough, so you dress it up a little. The 1978 George Romero film Dawn of the Dead turns out to be a success, and you are proud of your work. Then a few years later, you find out that the skeleton you used was not a plastic prop, but a real human skeleton! See, the skeleton had been sold to a costume shop, which offered it for rent.
In a strange twist of fate, a police officer visited the shop one day looking for a costume and spotted the skeleton, convinced that it was the real deal. Oddly enough, it was the mummified ‘skin’ hanging off of the bones that tipped the officer off, though the faux flesh was actually applied by Savini on the Dawn set, made from a mixture of rubber, cotton and Rice Krispies cereal. A testament to Savini’s talents, to say the very least!
Authorities arrived at the shop and confiscated the skeleton, which the coroner identified as being the remains of a woman in her mid-30s, who had died of unknown causes. Apparently, the woman had passed away 100 years prior, and nobody is quite sure how her body ended up being passed around from person to person, thought to be either a prop decoration or a teaching tool.
While the police did not suspect foul play, they investigated the history of the skeleton anyway. Read the entire story of the discovery and what happened to the skeleton afterward. -via Strange Remains