Human remains found near Guilford-Rockingham line, investigators seek identity

Human remains found in woods just over the Guilford County line have triggered a cross-county investigation along a busy stretch of U.S. 158 near Summerfield, where deputies say the body had likely been there for an extended period.

The remains were found around 6:30 p.m. Thursday in a wooded area near the 100 block of Millstone Drive, off U.S. Highway 158 near Price Mill Road. Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page said some of the remains had reached the skeleton phase, and investigators also recovered clothing items with the body. Page said the immediate goals are to identify the victim, determine the cause of death and figure out whether a crime was committed.

Authorities said a citizen walking in the woods reported the discovery. Another account said the remains were found by a person conducting a land survey on private property. The location, just over the Guilford County line in Summerfield, adds a jurisdictional wrinkle to a case being handled by the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office with help from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

The victim’s gender has not yet been definitively identified, and the state Chief Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to assist with forensic analysis and DNA testing. That process will be central to determining who the person was and how long the remains had been there before they were found.

The discovery has also drawn attention because it was the second set of human remains found in Rockingham County within eight days. A separate case at Ruffin Rock Quarry began April 9 and led to additional remains being recovered the next day. That earlier search involved underwater drones, cadaver K-9 units and sonar technology, underscoring how aggressively investigators are trying to piece together both cases.

For people who travel U.S. 158 between Summerfield and the Rockingham County line, the focus now turns to what investigators can establish about the timeline and whether the two remains cases are connected in any way. For now, the wooded strip near Millstone Drive remains an active forensic scene, and the biggest unanswered questions are who was found there and what happened before the remains were left in the woods.