CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – As authorities work to identify skeletal remains found near Interstate 93, the family of a Chichester man missing since 2001 worries the body is his.

The Attorney General’s Office has called in a forensic anthropologist from Maine to help identify the remains, which they believe are more than a year old, and determine whether the man’s death resulted from a crime or an accident.

The body was found Friday afternoon by a man walking in a wooded area near Exit 12 on the southbound side of I-93.

Assistant Attorney General David Ruoff told the New Hampshire Sunday News that investigators have consulted the state police database on missing persons, and have some “hunches and suspicions” about the man’s identity, but little evidence.

Ruoff said Sunday that investigators hope to get records they need to help identify the body on Monday. Investigators have said that dental records and clothing will be key to the identification.

Only one man is posted on the missing persons page of the state police Web site: Lorne Boulet, who was 21 when he failed to return from his evening walk on July 29, 2001. Ruoff declined to comment on whether the remains could be Boulet’s.

Boulet, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia shortly before he turned 20, lived with his parents in Chichester and worked part-time at the Wal-Mart in Concord. His family has said that when he took his walk, he was not carrying any ID, cash or a cellphone.

Boulet’s aunt, Louise Holmburg, of Bristol, said Saturday she has not gotten word on whether the body could be her nephew’s. But if it is, “It’s going to be devastating,” she said.

“I’m sitting here with a weight in my stomach,” she said. “I’ve already chewed off my fingernails.

“The not knowing is very difficult,” she said. “Like everyone, we want positive answers. We want to find Lorne safe.”

His family has posted a Web site (www.findlorne.faithweb.com), worked with missing persons organizations and taken their search to television.

An answering machine at the Boulets’ home has the message: “If this is you, Lorne, we need to hear from you. We love you and we miss you.”