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By Rachel Hatzipanagos and Sofia Santana, Sun Sentinel
7:38 p.m. EDT, June 28, 2010

Skeletal remains discovered Monday morning off U.S. 27 in northwestern Broward County immediately caught the attention of Hallandale Beach police.

Their detectives have been searching for more than three weeks for Lynda Robin Meier, 40, who was last seen driving away from her condo building in Hallandale Beach on June 4.

The bones, however, appear to have been outside longer than the three weeks that Meier has been missing, leading police to think that the bones probably are not Meier's.

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"Preliminary information tells us the bones may have been there for a few months," said Hallandale Beach Police Capt. Sonia Quinones. "Nonetheless, we're still investigating."

Detectives from other agencies also are checking their files to see if they can match any of their missing persons to the skeleton, officials said.

It's a task that is often tricky and painfully slow. It can take months, if the cases are ever solved.

In Broward and Palm Beach counties, more than 150 skeletons and other human remains found over the years are still unidentified, according to medical examiner reports.

Investigators could not immediately tell whether the bones found Monday belonged to a man or a woman, how long the bones had been outside or how the person died.

A man driving back to his Broward home from a family trip to Palm Beach County found the bones at about 8:35 a.m.

The man had pulled over onto a gravel road off U.S. 27 and spotted a section of flattened brush and what he thought was an animal, authorities said. When he took a closer look, he saw human bones and clothing and called the Sheriff's Office, said sheriff's spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion.

The Sheriff's Office is handling the investigation with the Broward Medical Examiner's Office.

They plan to work with a forensic anthropologist who can study the bones and determine the sex, race and approximate age of the person, and, possibly, how the person died, Concepcion said.

The skeleton is among at least four other cases in recent years in which human remains have been discovered along U.S. 27 in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

In November 2008, authorities found the remains of Adam Gerber along an access road just south of the Broward-Palm Beach County line. Gerber, 33, of Coral Springs, had been killed four days earlier, police said at the time. They made an arrest later that month.

The remaining U.S. 27 cases, all unsolved, are:

In October 2009, authorities found Edward Brown, 40, slain inside a pickup someone left at a boat ramp a mile north of Interstate 75, in western Broward.

In August 2007, a crew cutting grass along the road uncovered the skeleton of an unidentified man. The skeleton was in the brush, just north of Sheridan Street in southwestern Broward. Investigators still do not know how he died.

In April 2005, a bicyclist looking for a place to camp just north of the Broward-Palm Beach County line stumbled upon a large blue box on the side of the road. When he looked inside, he found the body of an unidentified woman, sheathed in plastic, authorities said. The case was ruled a homicide.

The Broward Sheriff's Office asks that anyone with information about the skeleton found Monday contact Homicide Detective Efrain Torres at 954-765-4321 or Broward Crime Stoppers 954-493-TIPS (8477).

Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

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