Human remains found 22 years ago in a farmer’s field near Faulkner, Man. have been identified as those of a man reported missing the year before in Winnipeg.

The remains have been identified as those of Patrick Lawrence Rosner, 20, said RCMP on Aug. 10.

Police are treating the death as suspicious.

A skull was discovered in August of 1990 in a hay field near Faulkner, about 200 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Other remains, including a hand and foot, were found nearby.

John Sanders, 78, said one of his workers ran back from the hayfield after finding a skull.

“He just came back to the farmstead and we went back and picked up what we could,” said Sanders.

Based on technology available for the investigation at the time, police believed the bones belonged to a woman between 25 and 40 years old.

“DNA has come a long way and has been instrumental in this case in not only identifying or confirming the fact that all these years we were looking for a female where in fact we should have been looking for a male,” said Sgt. Line Karpish from the RCMP.

Officers elected to dig up the bones, which had been reburied after the initial investigation.

“All our attempts, and there were many, many attempts at identifying who we believed was a female, were going nowhere,” said Karpish.

“Basically, we were hitting a wall so it was decided to go back – back to the beginning,” she said.

In September of 2011, the unidentified remains were exhumed for forensic analysis, which included DNA extraction, said RCMP.

The partial remains were then determined to belong to a man.

A year later,officials matched the DNA from the remains to those of a family with a missing loved one.

Patrick Rosner was reported missing by his family on June 24, 1989. He was last seen leaving Bristol Aerospace by coworkers in Winnipeg the afternoon of June 23, 1989.

Police are now asking anyone with information that could aid the case to contact investigators, so that Rosner’s family can have some closure.  

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the RCMP historical case unit at 204-984-6447.

People can also call Manitoba Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit a secure tip online at www.manitobacrimestoppers.com or text: TIPMAN plus your message to CRIMES (274637).

- with a report from CTV's Caroline Barghout