Archeologists in North Carolina are ready to release their grip on a Colonial-era resident who may have been a surviving member of Blackbeard’s pirate crew.

A Superior Court judge ruled the bones found in 1986 should be returned for reburial to the man’s descendants.  Raleigh researcher and Outer Banks historian Kevin Duffus thinks the bones are the remains of Edward Salter, a former member of Blackbeard’s pirate crew who died 275 years ago.

Salter escaped being hanged after Blackbeard’s death and became a barrel-maker and respectable member of the colonial port town of Bath.

Duffus has sought genetic testing on the bones to confirm his theory.