1:30pm Tuesday 16th March 2010
An unidentified skeleton found in woods is thought to be a young man who had taken his own life.
The bones were found by a dog walker on Friday night and are due to be examined by a pathologist today.
Clothing and other effects left at the scene have led police to believe the body was of a man who had killed himself.
The death is no longer being treated as suspicious.
Officers have stressed neither the person’s gender nor the cause of their death have yet been confirmed because of the condition of the bones.
Police hope they can find out who the person was and exactly how and when they died by trawling missing person’s records, the DNA database and dental records.
The badly decomposed body was discovered by a dog walker in woods off Alfriston Road, near Seaford.
Police were called to the site, near a car park at the High And Over beauty spot, at about 7pm.
Officers believe the body may have been at the spot for years – possibly even before the creation of the DNA database in 1995.
The bones were removed on Saturday and are understood to be at the mortuary at Eastbourne District General Hospital.
A post-mortem examination is due to take place today.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: “The remains appear to have been in undergrowth for some time.
“Enquiries to establish the identity of the body and the cause of death are continuing.
One line of enquiry is that this is a missing person from some years ago.
“A post-mortem is to be set and forensic tests are being carried out.
The death is not being treated as suspicious.”
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