Human Remains Found in Wastewater Well Near Missing Student Caleb Harris' Apartment

Unidentified human remains have been located close to the apartment where 21-year-old Caleb Harris, a missing Texas college student, was last seen before his March 4 disappearance, according to police and multiple local news reports.

A city employee in Corpus Christi, Texas, discovered the remains on Monday, June 24, in a 40-foot-deep well and notified police around 3:30 p.m. local time, the Corpus Christi Police Department said in a news release on Tuesday, June 25.

The well, a wastewater collection point, is located near the off-campus apartment where Harris, 21, lived, outlets including the Beaumont Enterprise, San Antonio Express-News and Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported.

The well is also located near Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, where Harris is a second-year student.

Upon discovery of the remains, police requested assistance from the Corpus Christi Fire Department, who “donned hazardous material suits to retrieve the remains from within the well,” Tuesday's news release states.

The well was drained of waste water so the fire department’s hazmat team could retrieve the remains, the Caller-Times reported.

The remains are now in the custody of the medical examiner’s office, which is working to identify them, police said.

Authorities also noted that the area where the remains were discovered was previously checked in the early days of the search for Caleb, which ultimately combined the efforts of local authorities, Caleb’s friends and family and organizations including the U.S. Coast Guard and Texas Search and Rescue.

"This whole area has been searched many times over," a spokesperson for the Corpus Christi Police Department told the Caller-Times.

The investigation into Harris' disappearance is still “active and ongoing,” police said.

The Corpus Christi Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Harris went missing near his apartment complex — which is located in the 1900 block of Ennis Joslin Road near Texas A&M University's Corpus Christi campus — on March 4, according to police.

The New Braunfels native left his apartment around 3 a.m. to pick up an Uber Eats order after leaving his dog inside the apartment, Fox News previously reported. His order was marked as completed, his dad, Randall “Randy” Harris, told the network, but he had "vanished."

His order was found the next day by his roommate outside the apartment where it had been delivered, the Beaumont Enterprise reported.

Randy also noted that Caleb left behind his keys, wallet and car.

"There's no evidence of wrongdoing, but there's no evidence at all," Randy told Fox News at the time. "And so it's a matter of looking at every inch, everything we could possibly think of."

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Uber has told PEOPLE that Caleb’s order was completed without any reported incident and that the delivery person continued to make additional deliveries.

"It is a mystery," his dad told Fox News.

A GoFundMe fundraiser to "help pay for the resources needed" to bring Caleb home has raised more than $70,000 as of Tuesday.