FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A surveyor working in a remote wooded area near an industrial site in Fort Myers found a single human skull last March. He immediately called Fort Myers police.

"What was going through my mind was that this was an overwhelming task that was really going to tax our resources," said Lt. Brian Phillips, who arrived at the scene.

As Phillips and other policeman looked around the site, they found more bones and then more skulls. Before they were finished they would find the skeletal remains of eight men, all white, ranging in age from 18 to 49.

Estimates are the earliest body had been there since 1980 and the most recent left in the year 2000, Local 10 reported.

There was no attempt made to even bury the bodies, they were just dumped, police said.

"It turned into an overwhelming investigative task that our agency was going to have to handle," said Philliips.

The tie to South Florida? Some theories are that the bones are those of South Florida mobsters who were brought to the area to die.

Another theory is that this was the work of the Hog Trail killer. In 1999, Daniel Conahan was sentenced to death for the murder of a homeless man whose naked body was found in a similar area of Fort Myers. He was suspected in a string of other killings -- cases that to this day remain unsolved, Local 10 reported.

But police first must learn who the victims are, then try to determine how and why they died.

Police are getting help in identifying the remains from a forensic dentist and from an anthropologist who helped identify bodies from Hurricane Katrina, but so far they've had no luck, Local 10 reported.