Homicide detectives are responding to reports of human remains found near the wash in Santa Clarita, officials said Monday.

The report came in around 9:40 a.m. at the 26400 block of Bouquet Canyon Road near Lowe’s and the Santa Clara river wash, according to a Nixle news release.  

The victim’s identity is unknown, according to Nixle. The cause of death and identification of the victim will be determined by the Los Angeles Department of Coroner.

“Earlier this morning, workers that were hired by the city of Santa Clarita were cleaning up some debris that has been left behind by some folks that, they believe, were homeless living near the river bed and some human remains were located down there on the south part of the river bed,” said Lt. Steve Jauch with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau. “(There are) several, what appear to be, human bones. We don’t, obviously at this point, know sex, race or cause of death but this deceased person has been dead for, at least we know, months or even years. We just dont know.”

L.A. County Coroner’s office officials are going to be responding and conducting an excavation operation, Jauch said, adding that investigators believe that the remains do not belong to Kristin Ghilardi, who recently went missing.

“There’s absolutely no reason to believe that this person died anytime recently,” Jauch said. “At this point, we don’t know if we even have a crime. We don’t know if there’s a homicide, we don’t know if there’s a natural death, suicide. It’s just too early to tell. We’ve got a long way to go and were just getting started.”

There is no additional information available at this time.

Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500.  If you prefer to provide information anonymously, you may call “Crime Stoppers” by dialing (800) 222-TIPS (8477), or texting the letters TIPLA plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or by using the website.