The human remains recovered at a recently sold property in Colorado were identified as those of a 16-year-old girl who had been missing since 2005.

On Friday, Oct. 11, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office verified in a news statement that the human head and hands found in a Grand Junction residence in January belong to 16-year-old Amanda Overstreet, who “has not been seen or heard from since April 2005.”

The sheriff’s office stated that DNA testing has identified the victim, Amanda Leariel Overstreet. “[Overstreet] was the biological daughter of the former owner of the property. We are still investigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and continuing the forensic examination of material. No report of Amanda Overstreet’s missing status exists.”

During their first inquiry in January, deputies “found the head and hands of a human, which had been discovered in a freezer by someone who arrived to claim the free appliance offered by the new owner of the recently sold home,” according to the statement.

The sheriff’s office later confirmed to PEOPLE that they were investigating the case as a homicide.

In July, the Mesa County Coroner’s Office confirmed to the sheriff’s office that they had performed an autopsy on Overstreet’s body, but they did not release any further details about her cause of death or the ongoing investigation at that time.

Back in January, neighbor Sam Troester told local NBC station KUSA that the former inhabitants of the property left on the morning of January 12, and the new owners arrived later that day to clean up the premises.

“It turns out that the new owners of the house posted online that they were looking to sell a bunch of the garbage that was left behind, scrap metal, and things that people could repurpose,” Troester recalls, “and there was a deep freezer that was posted up for grabs.”

Troester reported that the people who came to retrieve the freezer later asked if they could use her restroom.

“I let them in, and cautiously I was like, ‘What’s going on?'” Troester informed KUSA. “They went on to tell me that when they opened the freezer to empty it in preparation for moving it, a human head dropped out.” “A human head!”

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has been working with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on the case, according to local source KJCT. Mesa County Sheriff’s Office communications officer Wendy Likes stated that Overstreet was “just a child” when she died.

“I mean, she was a child.” She was sixteen years old. “She is still a child,” Likes told the site.