Unexploded WWII era projectile found in Ellijay

ELLIJAY - An unexploded World War II era projectile was found in Ellijay yesterday afternoon.

The Ellijay Police Department responded to a call at the Cartecay Thrift Shop, where volunteers for the store said they were cleaning out a warehouse and found the shell in a bucket of scrap metal.

According to Police Chief Edward Lacey, the GBI bomb squad and the US Air Force Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team were called out to examine the rusted shell.

"They used some equipment, such as x-ray machines, to try and determine whether or not it was a live round or not. [They] weren't really able to do that, so they decided to neutralize the item," said Lacey.

The two squads took the three inch artillery round to an unspecified location in city limits and neutralized the shell. "They used some military grade C-4 to put explosive charge on the item and after they blew it they found out that it was what looks like a training round," Lacey said.

The EOD team was able to determine the shell was from the World War II era, despite the fact military databases did not have an exact match to the shell.

Lacey said the volunteers did the correct thing when they found the artillery piece, especially since they were unfamiliar with it's origins . "It very easily could have been filled with red phosphorus or some other type of illumination device or even high explosives," said Lacey. "So we couldn't take that chance."