A suitcase containing what police believe to be human remains has been discovered on a ranch in Texas.

Police say the grim discovery was made on Thursday morning by people feeding animals at the ranch near San Antonio, Bexar County.

“They began investigating it and found what appears to be human remains,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a press conference.

“At this point, we don’t know anything about the gender of the remains or how long the remains have been out here,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the remains were “partial” and police “won’t be able to a determine cause of death or identification for some time”.

However, he said his first “inclination” was “homicide”.

“It is too early to tell if the person was killed here or were brought here in that piece of luggage and dumped here,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the luggage was left out in the open and burn spots were found in the area.

However, he said police did not yet know if they were an attempt to burn the body or were related to people burning rubbish.

Read more from Sky News:
Missing Texas man ‘living with his mother the whole time’
Champion skydiver killed trying high-risk landing in Texas

Be the first to get Breaking News

Install the Sky News app for free

“There really wasn’t a whole lot of effort to hide the body, other than it was inside a suitcase,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the owners of the ranch were out of town but were “co-operating” with the investigation.

“At this point I would not be able to say if they are related or not related to what they have found, but they are co-operating,” he said.

Related posts:

Tiger Woods driving at ‘excessive speed’ at time of serious car crash, police say Amazon offers to pay college fees for 750,000 workers in battle for staff US DoJ urges court to investigate Maxwell juror who was ‘victim of sexual abuse’ Three white men who chased and shot black man out running sentenced to life in prison US abortion debate promises a noisy and divisive road ahead Buffalo shooting ‘carried out by sick, demented individual fuelled by diet of hate’ who is now on suicide watch Boy, 6, who shot teacher used mother’s gun – as police reveal more details of shooting Harry says ‘dangerous lie’ told about his book – and claims Taliban remarks were taken out of context American football player Damar Hamlin who suffered cardiac arrest mid-game is released from hospital Texas mall gunman may have been neo-Nazi sympathiser, police say ‘Such a beautiful soul’: Two victims of Texas mall shooting named Prince Harry’s US court case could land him in very hot water with the authorities