Tests conducted on the remains showed that they were around 200 years old, which means that they may have been buried in the basement at the same time that Franklin was living there. However, further evidence showed that a close friend of Franklin, William Hewson, was the one responsible for the human remains. Hewson, an early anatomist, had lived in the house for two years and had been working in secret, since there were still legal issues in dissecting certain cadavers at the time. Franklin likely knew what Hewson was doing, but probably did not participate in the dissections.