HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Police are investigating the discovery of human bones in a Hollywood canal Monday afternoon.
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On Saturday, someone in the area reported seeing what looked like skeletal remains in the shallow water of the canal off Hollywood Boulevard just west of Interstate 95.
Police divers in full gear searched the shallow water of the canal Monday and found several bones and a skull.
Public works crews used a pole and a hook to scour for more remains. Other divers wormed their way through a storm drain pipe.
"Members from our dive team were able to go up into that pipe, approximately 100 yards up, and recovered some additional skeletal remains," said Lt. Manny Marino, of the Hollywood Police Department.
Investigators said it is too early to know the gender of the remains or how they ended up in the canal.
At least three South Florida women are missing at the moment, police said. Police are not ruling out the possibility that the remains could belong to one of them.
Monday's discovery was gut-wrenching for Sharon Solano, a friend of missing Hallandale Beach resident Lynda Meier. The missing woman was last seen on surveillance video on June 4 at a Hallandale Beach ATM.
Solano went to the canal after hearing that investigators had found human remains there.
"I'm so scared that she's in danger, and every time I hear that there is a body, I just am in pieces because I don't know. I don't know what to think. I don't know where she is. I don't know what's happened to her," Solano said.
The family of Sharon Elson, a missing woman from Hollywood, said they do not know what happened to her, either. She was last seen walking away from her Hollywood apartment on May 11.
"All the missing person cases in South Florida, of course, your heart goes out to the families. And as I said, they may have hope that this could perhaps be their loved one, but we're not even close to that yet," Marino said.
Police said the discovery of the skull might help investigators identify the person through dental records.