TAR HEEL — Robeson County investigators are tying to determine if what remained of a body that was pulled from a car discovered in the Cape Fear River on Friday was a Robeson County resident who went missing in 2001.

Sheriff Kenneth Sealey said Saturday that “bones and body parts” that were recovered from the truck of the vehicle will be examined for DNA and possibly dental records to try to make an identification. Sealey said the vehicle’s license plate was registered to the person who went missing, but he didn’t want to release a name until a positive identification has been made. He did say that the person who went missing in 2001 was a male and that his disappearance was investigated at the time as a murder.

Sealey said the vehicle was found by accident, in the river, about a mile north of Tar Heel.

“Some people were fishing under the bridge there on Thursday night and they heard a big splash,” the sheriff said, “and then they saw a truck with its headlights on floating down the river.”

He said that the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office had divers in the river early Saturday morning when they found the vehicle instead of the truck. He said when the body parts and bones were discovered, the area was declared a crime scene.

“We don’t know whether the person was killed in Robeson or Bladen County,” Sealey said.

He said that his department, the Bladen Sheriff’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation were processing the vehicle on Saturday afternoon. He did not want to release what kind of vehicle it was.

Sealey said he did not know how long it would take to make an identification of the body, saying DNA tests take a long time, but if dental records can be found, an identification could be made more quickly.

Sealey said the divers later found the truck they were looking for. He said it had been reported stolen from Fayetteville and apparently dumped into the river.

“Somebody just ditched the truck,” he said. “Nobody was in it. It had not even been reported stolen.”