Cowley County Sheriff identifies human remains found near Ark City

Update Thursday, Aug. 3:

The Cowley County Sheriff is asking for the public's help to locate the family of Hector Saul Huinac-Lucas.

His body was found on Saturday, July 29 near a small ravine, out in a field, just south of Arkansas City.

The Cowley County Sheriff's Office submitted his fingerprints to a national database to determine his identity.

Huinac-Lucas is described as a Hispanic man, five feet tall, 120 lbs. His date of birth is listed as either October 26, 1993 or 1996.

The sheriff's office says the last known location for Huinac-Lucas is Arkansas City in 2015. It's believed he worked as an employee or contracted employee for Creekstone.

Authorities are unsure where he may have lived between then and his time of death.

The sheriff's office is asking for anyone who knew of Huinac-Lucas, his whereabouts, or how long he'd been missing, to call their office or Cowley County Crimestoppers.

"Our main goal is to make sure we can find a family member," said Sheriff David Faletti. "We really wanted to make a notification to the family - and not like this. This is probably the worst way to notify a family member that their loved one has passed. But we have exhausted every avenue to try to locate anyone in Cowley County or anywhere else."

Faletti said due to factors such as weather and hydration, the pathologist was unable to tell his detectives how long Huniac-Lucas may have been in the field.

While no trauma was observed, the sheriff's office says Huinac-Lucas' death remains under investigation.

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Update Monday, July 31:

We're learning new details about human remains that were found in a field south of Arkansas City Saturday.

The Cowley County Sheriff's Office tells us initial autopsy results show the body is that of an adult male. The questions of who this person is and how he died remain unanswered.

"Preliminary findings show that there was no trauma located on the body. The unidentified deceased is a male who is of small stature and there were no identifiable markings on the body," Cowley County Sheriff David Falletti says.

Falletti says his department is working with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, trying to identify the remains. Falletti says this effort includes asking people in the area if anyone has a missing family member.

Anyone with information that could help investigators identify the body and determine what happened to the person is asked to contact the Cowley County Sheriff’s Office at 620-221-5444 or Cowley County Crime Stoppers at 620-221-7777 or 620-441-7777.

The man who found the body Saturday morning says he came across it while checking on his own cattle. The man's wife says what she finds particularly strange is that the body was laying in plain sight.

She says her husband was on his four-wheeler, checking their cattle when he noticed a smell.

"Thought it was a dead animal," the woman says. "So as he investigated and got closer to where the smell was coming from, he realized it was a person and immediately called 911. I never felt unsafe myself. I was just concerned how this could've happened."

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Cowley County sheriff's deputies found human remains Saturday.

They were called out to the 7000 block of 312th Road at 10 a.m. for reports of apparent human remains. The sheriff's office says the calling party was checking on cattle when they found the remains in a field.

Investigators do not know the name of the person who died nor the cause of death.

An autopsy is scheduled Monday at the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center in Wichita.