DELTA, Utah ? A federal anthropologist is working with authorities who are trying to determine the age of human remains uncovered in Utah's central desert during a search for clues in the disappearance of a mother missing since 2009.
Joelle McCarthy, an anthropologist for the Bureau of Land Management, said Thursday she would assess the location of the remains to see whether the site is historic ? meaning remains might belong to Native Americans or early settlers ? or whether it's fresh enough to possibly solve the high-profile mystery of Susan Cox Powell.
"Our mission today is to determine if the burial site is old," McCarthy said.
Authorities have been searching since Monday in the area near Topaz Mountain in Juab County. The site is about 135 miles southwest of the location where Susan Powell was last seen at her home in West Valley City. It is also just about 30 miles south of where Powell's husband, Josh Powell, told police he took his two young children camping on the night his wife vanished.
Officials still do not know whether the remains, which were found Wednesday by a cadaver dog, even belong to a woman.
West Valley City Police Lt. Bill Merritt said that because the remains were found on Bureau of Land Management property, federal officials must first examine the site before police can process the scene further. Different categories of law govern how to handle "historic" remains that date from the period between 1776 and 1961.
Susan Powell was 28 when she was reported missing Dec. 7, 2009, after she failed to show up for her stockbroker job. The case has cast a harsh spotlight on Powell's husband, who remains the only person of interest but has never been arrested or charged. Josh Powell has not returned repeated calls to the Associated Press seeking comment. In a string of national television interviews last month, he denied killing his wife or having anything to do with her disappearance.
"We would love this to be a break," Merritt said. "We hope, to a certain extent, that it is not Susan because that would mean that she is maybe alive somewhere."
He declined to comment on the state of the remains, what was found or exactly where.
The area is in a rugged remote section of Utah's central high desert surrounded by grasses and sagebrush and punctuated by jagged mountains rising from the flat landscape. At the time of year Susan Powell vanished, it would have been covered in snow, the ground frozen.
Josh Powell was driving a minivan that night.
Merritt said the site would have been difficult to reach in December but not impossible.
"Impossible? I can't say that," he said. "Difficult? It probably would be."
Meanwhile, friends and family waited and prayed.
Kiirsi Hellewell, a close friend of Susan Powell, said the discovery of remains brought a sense of hope that the case might finally move forward but also sadness that she might really be dead.
"It's always a mixture of emotions because we've been down this road before with the discovery of bodies and remains," Hellewell said. "It's like a seesaw because we also don't want to find out that she's dead."
In May, speculation swirled that remains found in the desert about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City might have been those of Susan Powell, but authorities later said it was a young adult male.
Last month, investigators searched mine shaft-dotted mountains near Ely, Nev., and later served a search warrant at the Puyallup, Wash., home that Josh Powell shares with his father, seizing computers and journals.
This latest search is in an area popular for gem and rock hunters. Police have said Josh Powell liked to rock hunt in the area.
"From the very beginning he clearly indicated he had been in and around the area," said West Valley City Police Sgt. Mike Powell, who is not related to the family of the missing woman.
Susan Powell's father, Chuck Cox, expressed doubt that the remains belonged to his daughter because of how difficult it would have been to access the area in winter.
"We're just waiting," he said Wednesday evening.
The Powell family put out a statement late Wednesday urging police to put out details about the remains.
"With very little information available to the public, we can only hope that additional information is released quickly to minimize heartache to those of us who love Susan. In the meantime, we continue to hope for Susan's safe return," it said.
Josh Powell has said he believes his wife ran off with another man and has told police he left her at home about 12:30 a.m. on that Dec. 7 to go winter camping in freezing temperatures with their young sons ? then 4 and 2 ? about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. The 4-year-old confirmed the trip to police.
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Contributors to this story included Associated Press writers Brian Skoloff in Salt Lake City, Eugene Johnson in Seattle and Ted S. Warren from Puyallup.
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