Carbondale ? The Osage County Sheriff’s Office continues to wait on the identification of a human skull found March 25 in Carbondale, a town about 15 miles south of Topeka with a population of about 1,400.

“We’re kind of at a standstill (until the skull is identified),” said Osage County Sheriff Laurie Dunn.

The skull — found by a mushroom hunter — was sent to the coroner’s office, but then had to be sent out of state for testing, a process which could take another six months, Dunn said.

For several days, law enforcement searched the area near 118th Court, just off Wanamaker Road, where the skull was found, but turned up no other human remains. The nature of the case — whether it’s a possible homicide, suicide or death by natural causes — remains unclear.

Dunn said they’ve also been trying to connect the remains to any missing persons cases, though there aren’t any in Osage County, she said.

There are 37 active missing-persons cases in Kansas, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, operated by the U.S. Department of Justice.