Painter finds hand-me-down severed hand

CONTRACTORS working on an old house in the US have found a human hand that police later confirmed was severed 50-80 years ago, but it’s still unclear whose hand it was and why it was there.

Painters working for Bo Jespersen, who renovates and sells old homes, discovered what appeared to be a man’s hand in June.

“They called me and said they’d been losing sleep over something they’d found,” the Maine, USA, resident said at the weekend.

When he saw the hand, Mr Jespersen was struck by its size, with fingers about an inch and a half longer than his own.

“It’s huge. And he didn’t cut his nails,” he said.

The wrist portion appeared jagged, Mr Jespersen said, as if the hand had been removed violently, and 15-20cm of what appeared to be tendons were looped around it.

The mysterious body part was discovered by Derek Levasseur while painting the Depot Road house, which was built in 1910. During a break, Mr Levasseur was in the garage looking at a small wood-burning stove.

On top of the stove was a box, which Mr Levasseur opened. At first glance at the hand, Mr Levasseur and his brother concluded it was not real.

“We thought it was a prop,” he said. “I touched the fingers on it, and I thought, ‘It can’t be real’.”

Mr Levasseur called Mr Jespersen, who contacted the woman who had owned the house. He also called the state police, who came to the house, tested ashes in the stove and interviewed the former owner.

Police concluded that the hand had been ripped off 50 to 80 years ago. They also seized the hand because it’s illegal to possess such a body part.

The previous owner claimed she had gotten the hand from a man down the road, who is now in his 80s and remembers his father having the hand.

“She had heard it was from a farming accident,” Mr Jespersen said.