'Human remains' found in suitcase on Texas ranch

A suitcase containing what police believe to be human remains has been discovered on a ranch in Texas.

Police say the grim discovery was made on Thursday morning by people feeding animals at the ranch near San Antonio, Bexar County.

“They began investigating it and found what appears to be human remains,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a press conference.

“At this point, we don’t know anything about the gender of the remains or how long the remains have been out here,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the remains were “partial” and police “won’t be able to a determine cause of death or identification for some time”.

However, he said his first “inclination” was “homicide”.

“It is too early to tell if the person was killed here or were brought here in that piece of luggage and dumped here,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the luggage was left out in the open and burn spots were found in the area.

However, he said police did not yet know if they were an attempt to burn the body or were related to people burning rubbish.

“There really wasn’t a whole lot of effort to hide the body, other than it was inside a suitcase,” he added.

Sheriff Salazar said the owners of the ranch were out of town but were “co-operating” with the investigation.

“At this point I would not be able to say if they are related or not related to what they have found, but they are co-operating,” he said.