GOWER, Missouri — The body of a Missouri nun was surprisingly found intact and “undecayed” when she was exhumed last year, nearly four years after her death. A recently completed investigation into the discovery has left experts baffled.

The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Thursday released the results of a medical examination and evaluation of the remains of Sister Welhelmia Lancaster.

Sister Lancaster died in May 2019. She was buried within days in a grave on the grounds of the Catholic convent in Gower, Missouri, a small town nearly an hour north of Kansas City.

The diocese says she was buried in an unlocked wooden coffin without embalming or any other treatment of her body. When a group dug up her body in April 2023 to transport Sister Lancaster to a church for burial, her remains were found intact and undecomposed.

A team of local medical experts, including pathologists and a former county coroner, examined the remains and concluded that the condition of her body was “highly atypical.”

“Based on what was observed during this time, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster’s body does not appear to have undergone the decomposition that would normally be expected under such burial conditions,” the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph said in a press release.

Furthermore, soil tests at her burial site did not reveal any “unusual elements” that could have affected the condition of the remains.

Despite the new findings, the diocese does not plan to initiate a process to obtain state recognition for Sister Lancaster, arguing that the Catholic Church does not have an official protocol for determining incorruptibility.