Investigators confirmed today that they have uncovered human remains near the Olentangy River just south of the Delaware County line, but they stopped short of saying the remains belong to a woman missing for nearly four years.

Neighbors said homicide detectives have been searching since Tuesday in the thick woods between Olentangy River Road and the river, in an area north of Edgecliff Drive.

Investigators have told them it is a crime scene, and two tents have been erected several hundred feet north of Edgecliff Drive.

Police are releasing little information but said the largely skeletal remains were found in what they described as a shallow grave.

“We have confirmed that we have found human remains,” said Sgt. Richard Weiner, a police division spokesman. “There is a probability that the remains belong to Ashley Howley.”

Howley, 20, disappeared from her North Side apartment in June 2004. The search location is directly behind a home linked to Robert P. MacMichael II, Howley's former boyfriend and the prime suspect in her disappearance.

MacMichael lived at one time with his father at 8250 Olentangy River Road, a home perched on a hillside that overlooks the woods now being searched

Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis said Thursday night that homicide detectives called his office earlier this week about the remains.

Weiner said the remains were being painstakingly removed, and police were expected to remain on the scene all day today.

“We're not going to rush it for any reason,” he said. “We're treating the area very gingerly right now. It would be ideal if we could wrap this up today.”

Weiner said determining whether the body is Howley's will take more time, likely due to the need to identify it using DNA testing.

“We're not going to jump to any conclusions,” he said.

Police called in an anthropologist, Lewis said, to direct digging efforts.

Police have long said they believed Howley, 20, had been killed but were unable to move forward because her body was never found.

Howley called police to her apartment off Schrock Road on June 16, 2004, to report that MacMichael had assaulted her. She spoke to a girlfriend the following afternoon but hasn't been seen since.

Earlier this year, police said MacMichael remained their only suspect in her disappearance.

MacMichael, 25, was living with his father in Mount Air until he was arrested in January in the slayings of his mother and her boyfriend at their home in Minerva Park. Barbara Rush and Greg Bartee were found beaten to death in their bedroom in December.

MacMichael was charged with aggravated murder in the deaths and is in the Franklin County jail awaiting a trial in August.

No one answered the door at his father's home near the search area, and messages left there seeking comment were not returned. A large picture window overlooks a deck and faces the woods where the remains were discovered.