The human remains found last month by children exploring an island on the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts has been identified, authorities said Tuesday.
The children were on the island between Greenfield and Montague when they came upon skeletal remains on Aug. 23, authorities said.
The remains have been identified as belonging to Brian Cromwell, a 57-year-old Greenwood resident who was reported missing in December 2020, according to the Northwestern District Attorney's Office.
The cause of Cromwell's death has not yet been determined. Anyone with information about what happened is asked to call state police at 413-774-3186.
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The Daily Hampshire Gazette has reported that the remains were found on Rawson Island by a group of children with Biocitizen Inc., an program aimed at teaching kids about the environment.
Kurt Heidinger, the program's founder, told the newspaper that a 7-year-old boy was the first to see the bones, and Heidinger thought at first that they belonged to a deer. But another boy then found a human skull, at which point they called 911.
Investigators collected what they could that day, the district attorney's office said at the time, and the chief medical examiner's office responded a day later to ensure the recovery of all the remains.
