(March 6, 2007)--The remains of legendary singer J.P. Richardson, known to many as "The Big Bopper," were exhumed Tuesday morning at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont.

The singer from Beaumont died almost 50-years ago in a plane crash, along with musicians Buddy Holly and Richie Valens.

The "Big Bopper's" son, Jay Richardson, says he hired a prominent forensic anthropologist to exhume his father's remains.

But the expert, Dr. Bill Bass, a well-known forensic anthropologist at the University of Tennessee, said later in the day Richardson suffered massive fractures and likely died immediately in a 1959 plane crash.

Richardson says he wanted to move the remains from one site to another at the cemetery, and figured he might as well seize the opportunity to settle rumors about the way his father died.

Richardson says there were rumors about a gun that might have been on the plane that crashed in 1959, and questions about whether his father could have survived the crash or whether he died later after trying to go for help.

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