A citizen's report of what looked like human remains in a wooded area near the end of West Elkhorn Drive in Homosassa sent Citrus County Sheriff's Office deputies into an overnight investigation that stretched into the following morning. Preliminary observations suggest the remains may have been at the location for several years, and investigators have not yet determined the identity, sex, or the circumstances surrounding the death.
Deputies responded to the wooded lot on Sunday, August 30, after the citizen's report came in, and quickly secured the area before requesting that the Forensics Unit and Major Crimes Unit respond, according to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office. Heavy rain and severe weather rolling through the region forced crews to halt scene processing overnight, according to WTSP, before investigators resumed recovery efforts Monday morning.
Officials say they have found no information indicating criminal activity and no evidence of an ongoing threat to the surrounding community. Even so, the sheriff's office has requested that the public avoid the West Elkhorn Drive area if possible while an increased law enforcement presence remains in place to preserve potential evidence. Anyone with information about suspicious activity tied to the area is asked to call the non-emergency line at 352-249-2790.
Medical Examiner and Forensic Anthropologists Take Over Skeletal Analysis
Because the remains appear to have been outdoors for an extended period, the case now depends heavily on specialists outside the sheriff's office. Investigators are working alongside the Districts 5 and 24 Medical Examiner's Office, based in Leesburg, which holds statutory responsibility for medicolegal death investigations across Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, Seminole, and Sumter counties. Under Florida Statute § 406.11, district medical examiners are required to assume jurisdiction and determine cause of death whenever remains are found under suspicious or unusual circumstances or when identity is unknown, per the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's explanation of the statewide framework.
Skeletal remains that have degraded over years in outdoor conditions typically require forensic anthropologists, who under Florida Statute § 406.11(1)(b) may only examine active cases at the direction of a district medical examiner, according to the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory at the University of Florida, a primary forensic anthropology resource for Florida law enforcement agencies. Once findings are in hand, Florida Statute § 406.145 requires law enforcement to complete an Unidentified Person Report and enter the case into the Florida Crime Information Center and national databases such as NamUs, which store dental and DNA profiles for matching against missing persons cases.
A Backdrop of Unresolved Cases in Homosassa
The discovery adds to a string of human remains cases that have surfaced in Homosassa's rural, wooded terrain over the years. In September 2018, the sheriff's office investigated remains found inside a trash can on a wooded lot off American Avocet Point, which an autopsy later confirmed belonged to a small-framed male, according to the Citrus County Chronicle. In June 2024, law enforcement recovered the remains of missing woman Jamie Macdonald from a Homosassa creek during a cross-county investigation that ended in a life sentence for a Hernando County man this past June, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of the Sclesky sentencing.
The area also has an open, unresolved missing-persons case of its own. The sheriff's office is still investigating the disappearance of 50-year-old Carey Glenn Norton, who went missing from Homosassa in August 2023 and whose pickup truck was later found abandoned in the Withlacoochee State Forest, a case Hoodline detailed in its report on Norton's disappearance. Separately, the sheriff's office announced on August 31 that 29-year-old Destiny Lefke, a Homosassa resident reported missing on August 28 after last being seen three weeks earlier, had been located safe, an update that underscores how active the sheriff's Major Crimes unit has been in the area this month.
A Statewide Pool of Missing Persons
Whatever is ultimately learned about the remains near West Elkhorn Drive will be checked against a large statewide pool of open cases. More than 3,200 individuals were actively registered as missing or endangered in Florida within the National Crime Information Center database as of early 2025, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which operates the state's Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse. That volume of unresolved cases is part of why cross-referencing DNA and dental profiles through national databases remains a critical, if often slow, step in identifying long-unattended remains.
For now, investigators have not determined the identity or sex of the person found, nor established how long the remains had been in the wooded lot beyond the preliminary sense that it could be several years. The sheriff's office says the investigation remains ongoing as forensic and medical examiner findings come in.
