VIDRINE, La., Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Human remains found near a cemetery Tuesday were likely those of Louisiana college student Mickey Shunick, who vanished in May while bike riding, police said.
"We believe these remains are Mickey Shunick's, but we are not 100 percent," The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser quoted Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft as saying.
Confirmation of that belief would be determined by testing, he said.
Shunick, a 22-year-old student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, vanished early on May 19 as she rode her bicycle home from a friend's house in downtown Lafayette, the newspaper said.
Brandon Scott Lavergne, 33, of Swords was arrested July 5 and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in her disappearance. He was indicted July 18 on first-degree murder charges in the deaths of Shunick and Lisa Pate, whose remains were found in September 1999 near Church Point.
Lafayette police Cpl. Paul Mouton said investigators were directed to the remains in an overgrown area behind a cemetery in Evangeline Parish by a credible source. He would not say whether the tipster was Lavergne.
"The remains do appear to be those of Mickey Shunick," Craft said. "Her family has been notified. We have a lot more processing to do and some scientific identification to do, but we believe those remains are that of Mickey."
