Officials Try to Identify Human Skull, Bones Found in Mountains

Investigators are trying to identify human bones found by a surveying team in the Santa Ana Mountains, a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Thursday.

Surveyors from the California Department of Transportation reported finding a human skull Wednesday on a mountainside above the Lookout Cafe on Ortega Highway, he said.

“There were a few bones beside the skull, but not the whole frame,” said Sgt. Donald Larsen. No clues to the identity or the cause of death were found, he added.

“It’s going to be a long process to identify the remains. To do that we’re going to have to check all the missing-person reports for our area and for surrounding counties.

“We hope that the examination by a pathologist will give us the age, the sex (and) perhaps how long it has been out there,” he said. “We also will have the skull examined by a dentist” for comparison with state missing-person records.

Until a cause of death can be determined, the case will be investigated as a homicide, Larsen said.