Bones found on a hiking trail in Echo Mountain near Altadena on Monday were human, coronre's officials said.
Hikers walking about one mile off Mt. Lowe Road at Echo Mountain made the discovery about 5:20 p.m. on Sunday and alerted authorities, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Ed Winter, assistant chief of operations and investigations for the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, said the bones initially appeared to be from a human leg, but he was not ruling out the possibility they could belong to an animal.
They were later confirmed to be human.
Coroner's investigators were working with Sheriff's Department homicide detectives.
"They're checking their database to find out if there's any reported missings that were last seen in the area or somebody that we could match it with," said Winter. "Hopefully we'll be able to find a lot more of the bones and the remains so we can try to make an identification."
A special operations response team and cadaver dog were searching the area during the investigation.
