unable to change material because some faces seem to be associated with other faces..

I’ve been working on an old 3ds freebie model I found online. Basically am going insane trying to figure this out. First of all, I’m still a bit of a blender noob so bear with me please, thanks.

The problem is that certain faces seem to have an association with other faces in the single mesh statue. I’ve tried changing materials numerous times… creating seams for new uv mapping, etc and still no matter what I do it’s the same outcome. I’ve renamed it. I’ve deleted the parent object, old materials and any other objects associated with the mesh, remove doubles and well everything I can think of. I’m sure there must be a simple solution and I’m just not experienced enough to find it. Very frustrated and I’m hoping this can be fixed. Thanks in advance for any help.

show some pics if you can
but you need 6 post I think before adding pics !

did you check if there is any hook or keys for animation may be?

can you upload if file is not too big < 1 .5 MB

happy bl

Gotta be vertex paint then…Just a guess but you could export as obj just selected mesh and try import it. Uncheck materials when export to be sure.