PORTLAND, N.Y. — Days after a hiker and investigators found separate sets of human remains near each other on the Rails to Trails in Portland, Chautauqua County Sheriff James Quattrone says the first cannot yet be positively identified.

What You Need To Know

  • One set of two human remains found in Chautauqua County have been identified
  • The second set is those of Marquita Mull of Buffalo
  • The first set is still inconclusive, but is not Corrie Anderson or Lori Bova

Portions of the skull found at the scene are being sent to a State Police crime lab in Albany for DNA testing.

"That body was estimated to be decades that had been in the ground, which could potentially match with the 1976 of Patricia Laemmerhirt," said Sheriff Quattrone.

Laemmerhirt was from Westfield. 

Quattrone says the remains are not those of Corrie Anderson, who disappeared in 2008, or Lori Bova, who went missing in 1997. 

"Dental records do not match," said Quattrone. "To talk with the family and realize the anguish that they have to go through every time a body is found, just knowing that their loved one is still out there someplace, I can't personally imagine what they're going through."

With the help of Mercyhurst's anthropology department, dental records confirm the second set of remains has been identified as Marquita Mull of Buffalo, who was reported missing in July and last seen a month prior to that in the Broadway-Fillmore area.

Quattrone says he doesn't know of any connection she has to Chautauqua County and foul play is expected, as she was dumped in a shallow grave.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Mull family, hoping they can perhaps get a level of comfort knowing where their loved one is," said Quattrone.

Members of the Mull family did not want to speak with Spectrum News 1 at this time, as deputies continue to work with Buffalo Police on the circumstance surrounding Hull's death.

Investigators have yet to determine a cause of death for either body.