The skull of missing mother Amber Tuccaro of Fort McMurray was found by horseback riders in a rural area near Beaumont on Saturday afternoon, police said Tuesday.
RCMP said the circumstances surrounding Tuccaro's death are "suspicious."
Project KARE Staff Sgt. Gerard MacNeil said the discovery brings investigators "closer to finding out what happened to Amber."
RCMP said the discovery of the remains was not related to the release last week of an audio tape of Tuccaro speaking to an unknown man.
Tuccaro had been missing for two years.
Forty RCMP investigators continued Tuesday to search a rural area south of Beaumont, just south of Edmonton, near where the remains were found on Saturday.
RCMP say a group of recreational horseback riders called Leduc RCMP after coming across "what they believed to be a human skull."
Dental records confirmed Tuccaro's identity.
Other bones have been found scattered around the area and police are expected to be at the scene at least until Thursday.
RCMP said Tuccaro, 20, flew from Fort McMurray to Edmonton on Aug. 17, 2010, with her 14-month-old son, Jacob, and a female friend. The three stayed overnight in a hotel in Nisku and Tuccaro left by herself the next evening to go to Edmonton.
She got into a car with an unknown man and was not seen again.
