Skeletal Remains Found on Small Ohio Island During Search for Missing Man

Human skeletal remains have been found on a small Ohio island amid an ongoing search for a missing man, according to police.

Police in Franklin, located between Cincinnati and Dayton, said the remains were found in Warren County at about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 9.

The remains were located by EquuSearch Midwest using one of the search-and-recovery nonprofit's drones and when officers arrived they treated the premises as a crime scene.

"We treated everything as a crime scene," Franklin police chief Adam Colon told Fox19. "That's normal, that's what we do procedure-wise. Our detectives came out, our officers came out and documented what we find."

He added: "The coroner's office from Warren County is coming out; they will remove the remains and take them to Montgomery County for further examination and identification."

The skeletal remains were located on a small island in the Great Miami River and remain unidentifiable at time of writing, including the sex.

Franklin police did not comment on how long they believe the skeletal remains had been on the island. Newsweek has contacted the Franklin Police Department.

EquuSearch Midwest, which is associated with Texas EquuSearch, said it was in the area to look for a missing local man, police told Fox19.

The coroner's office will need to use dental records in order to identify the remains, police told Fox19. It is unknown how the person died or whether foul play has been considered.

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS), there are 410 open missing-person cases and 105 open unidentified missing-person cases in Ohio.

Across the country, there are 23,404 open missing-person cases and 14,445 open unidentified-person cases.

Texas EquuSearch has been involved in numerous missing-person cases. EquuSearch founder Tim Miller, whose daughter was murdered—a case that features in the Netflix true-crime documentary series Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields—established the volunteer organization in 2000 in a bid to help people to try and locate their missing family members.

According to its website, the organization has worked on more than 2,000 cases and discovered over 300 bodies and 400 living people. The EquuSearch Midwest branch was launched in 2012.

"We work closely with many law enforcement agencies across the U.S. We also have many resources available that help assist us in achieving our goals of locating the missing.

"We specialize in searches that involve small and large groups of people. We manage searches that involve as few as five ground searchers up to five hundred or more, on ground, ATVs [all-terrain vehicle] and drones with thermal imaging and advanced technology," the organization said on its website.