A highway maintenance worker found the remains around noon Thursday in Clear Creek Canyon, west of Golden.

The Jefferson County Coroner's Office is examining the skeletal remains, which were discovered buried in a shallow grave on the shoulder of Highway 6, near mile marker 262.

A worker from the Colorado Department of Transportation was using a front-end loader to move dirt and rocks when a body wrapped in plastic fell out of the machine's bucket.

Heather DeWild, 30, vanished on July 24, just days before her divorce was to become final. Her white Nissan Sentra was found in the parking lot of a Wheat Ridge apartment complex on Aug. 4, near 44th Avenue and Kipling, but there was no sign of DeWild.

David Springer, DeWild's father, told 7NEWS that the Edgewater Police Department contacted him Thursday to help obtain her dental records for identification purposes. He said officials already have her DNA because shortly after she disappeared he gave police a strand of her hair. Heather and her two children had been staying with her parents ever since she filed for divorce in February.

Heather's father said part of him hopes the body is hers, so that his family could at least have some closure and the waiting game would be over. But the family also holds some slight hope that she will be found alive.

Springer, a Denver police technician, said the family has searched everywhere in the past six weeks. Family members say her disappearance is suspicious because she left her two children -- a 3-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy -- behind.

The body found Thursday had been there for some time, and was so badly decomposed that investigators could not immediately identify whether it was male or female.

Springer said the police told him it may take some time to determine the identity and age of the victim.

Police have searched the home of Daniel DeWild, Heather's estranged husband, but found few leads. Daniel DeWild has not been named a suspect in the disappearance. But police also said Daniel, and his twin brother, Dave, have not provided investigators with enough information to exclude them from the investigation. A Jefferson County grand jury has been looking into the Heather DeWild case.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said it will be going through the county's missing persons' files to see if the body matches any case it has at this time. Anyone with information concerning the incident is asked to call the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office at (303) 271-5599.

Previous Stories:

• September 4, 2003: Body Wrapped In Plastic Found In Shallow Grave
• August 5, 2003: Car Of Missing Mother Found In Wheat Ridge
• July 31, 2003: Police Search Husband's Home For Missing Woman
• July 25, 2003: Missing Woman Failed To Make Appointment