ERIE — Remains found in 23 pine coffins during a Pennsylvania prison construction project are now being used as a teaching tool for some college students.

The skeletal remains were discovered this year when crews began excavating land near a state prison in Somerset County. Now, the bones that could be a century old are laid out on tables covered in blue tarps at Mercyhurst College in Erie, where forensics students are examining them one-by-one.

The students aren't trying to identify the remains or figure out how they died. They are doing an inventory before the remains are reburied by prison officials.

MEADVILLE — A coroner said a county treasurer charged with stealing money from the county's fair denied the thefts in a suicide note.Crawford County Coroner Patrick McHenry said Frederic Wagner, 71, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head Friday.McHenry said a note Wagner left for his wife in their West Mead Township home says he didn't steal the money.Wagner was charged last month by the state attorney general after surveillance cameras allegedly showed him pocketing at least $300 from last year's fair. That investigation was continuing at the time of Wagner's death, and he had publicly denied wrongdoing.A county commissioner had had security cameras installed before last year's fair after hearing rumors of thefts for years.