British Columbia police have launched a homicide investigation after identifying the remains of a girl found on the side of Highway 16 as those of a missing Aboriginal teen.

"At this point, it is now a homicide investigation," Prince George RCMP spokesperson Const. Gary Godwin said Wednesday.

Aielah Saric-Auger, 14, a student at D.P. Todd Secondary School in Prince George, was last seen by her family on Feb. 2.

Police released the victim's identity after receiving the report on an autopsy that was performed Tuesday.

The Mounties have said nothing more about the case, other than the fact that it has now become a homicide investigation.

A passing motorist discovered Saric-Auger's remains just east of Prince George near Tabor Mountain on Friday.

Meanwhile, 24-year-old Crystal Lee Okimaw, who disappeared on Jan. 16 from the Prince George area, remains missing. She was last spotted at a local women's shelter.

Saric-Auger and Okimaw are the latest in a series of disappearances from the stretch of Highway 16, the so-called Highway of Tears, which date back to the early 1990s, mostly involving Aboriginal women.

"People accept that very much as a given in and around Prince George, that there is something about what's going on along Highway 16," Jon Swainger, crime historian and University of Northern British Columbia professor told CTV Vancouver.

Last September, 22-year-old Tamara Chipman disappeared while hitchhiking along the highway outside Prince Rupert.

One of the most high-profile cases involved 25-year-old tree planter Nicole Hoar, who went missing while hitchhiking on the stretch of highway in 2002.

While police have said they cannot rule out the possibility of a serial killer who is preying on women along Highway 16, they have found no proof to link the cases.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's Kate Corcoran