HARRISON COUNTY, MS (WLOX) -
Harrison County Sheriff's deputies are trying to determine if the badly decomposed body found in the woods Sunday morning is the missing man they've been looking for the past few days.
Jay Bond, 34, of Gulfport was officially reported missing January 24. However officials said he hasn't been seen since December. An autopsy was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, but officials said determining, for certain, if Bond and the remains are one in the same won't be easy.
Harrison County deputies said, Bond was last seen near Coleman Road and that is where search teams concentrated for days.
On Sunday, information came in that took the search slightly farther south on Coleman.
A neighbor told WLOX he contacted authorities after his dog found a hat. Authorities said Bond might have been wearing that hat and, using the neighbors information, they were able to find the body using cadaver dogs.
"At this point we have to determine if it is going to be Mr. Bond," Harrison County Investigator Joe Sturm said. "We have to determine whether there is foul play. Every investigation starts out as a homicide and we work our way back from there. Still too early to tell where we're going to go from this direction. We need to be able to identify who we found."
Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove said he's certain the death occurred at least several weeks ago. Because of the elements, he said the remains are too badly decomposed to determine cause of death or make a positive identification at this point.
"It makes it a lot more complicated because the body is in such bad shape. We have to start from basically square one which is nothing," said Hargrove.
Hargrove said along with the autopsy, he is working with Bond's family to get medical and dental records to see if there is a match. Hargrove said if that is not available then DNA tests wills be done.
Copyright 2012 WLOX. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and WLOX, a Raycom Media Station. 
