The body of missing FBI agent Stephen Ivens was found Monday evening by two hikers walking in the foothills above Burbank.
A suspicious odor led them to Scott Road, near St. Francis of Xavier Catholic Church, where they discovered human remains.
Investigators who arrived at the scene noted that the body matched Ivens' physical description, but official identification will be confirmed by the LA County Coroner's Office.
Sgt. Darin Ryburn of the Burbank Police Department told KNX 1070 that a weapon was recovered from the scene, but a cause of death is still unknown.
"Every indication is that he's been there from the first day," since he went missing, Ryburn also commented to the Los Angeles Times.
Ivens was last seen on the evening of May 10. He left his home on foot early the next morning, and his wife reported him missing that day.
According to an FBI press conference from the week he went missing, Ivens was described as a devoted agent who had no record of disciplinary problems, notes the Associated Press. However, he was being treated for depression and was distraught when he left the house. Officials thought he may have been a danger to himself when a search of his home did not turn up his service gun.
On the second day of the search, FBI search dogs had tracked Ivens' scent toward the Verdugo Mountains, near where his body was eventually found Monday evening.
Several weeks after Ivens went missing, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies called off the manhunt, but his wife Thea never stopped searching. She kept organizing search parties and created a website called LetsBringSteveHome.com to keep her husband's story alive, imploring others in the community to keep an eye out for a man who fit his physical description.
She regularly wrote about the search and the effect his absence had on her life in a blog, called "Thea's Thoughts." The most recent entry, from Sunday, marked 80 days of disappearance. In it, she wrote about her husband's passion for Boston sports teams and the love they have for his family on the East Coast.
"One of my hope is that if for some reason Steve couldn’t get back to California, somehow he would reach out to his mom and sister, back in his hometown in Massachusetts," wrote Thea.
The Ivens have a 2-year-old boy together.