A woman missing four years lived on the road where human remains were found this week.

Police reported last year that George David Hess reported seeing his wife, Sandy Marie Hess, then 42, at their home on Ridge Line Road in Jonican Jan. 7, 2005, when he laid down to take a nap.

A resident on Ridgeline Road found human skeletal remains Thursday, Post 9 of the Kentucky State Police (KSP) reported. Investigators worked throughout the day and were assisted at the scene by Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Emily Craig, of the Kentucky State Medical Examiner’s Office, Post 9 Public Information Officer Mike Goble said. The remains were removed from the scene and are pending positive identification by the medical examiner.

KSP had already searched the areas of Jonican, Kimper, Biggs and Grapevine within three weeks of Hess’ disappearance in 2005. Goble said the department cannot say the remains are Sandy Hess, and are awaiting a positive identification of the remains, as well as a cause of death.

Craig said she would report the information to County Coroner Russell Roberts when the analysis of the remains was complete.

“We do know it is an adult, and we do know it is female,” Roberts said about the remains found Thursday. “That’s the only thing we know right now.”

The investigating officer into the missing person’s case involving Hess, Det. Kevin Newsome, said in 2007, that he and Det. Donnie Shearer had been in Virginia that year to investigate reported sightings of Sandy Hess, while then Sgt. Steve Spurlock said officers from Post 4 had went over surveillance tapes from a Wal-Mart in Elizabethtown, Ky., but found no footage of Hess. Her family, however, had given up hope of ever finding Sandy Hess alive.

“We’ve lost her, because if we hadn’t she would have contacted some of us,” her mother Nancy Williams, who last seen her daughter three months before she disappeared, said in 2007. “It’s torture on all of us not knowing what happened to her.”

Hess’ sister, Catherine Thacker, said in 2007 she got tired of “sittin’ and doing nothing” and opened a bank account at BB&T in her sister’s name, depositing a $1,200 reward for information leading to closure in Sandy’s disappearance.

The family expressed previously that they feared George David Hess has something to do with his wife’s disappearance.

“He wouldn’t let her go anywhere, or let her come over here,” Williams said about George David Hess.

Thacker said she talked to her sister on the phone a month before she disappeared. She called Thacker from a neighbors house to get her to call the police for her, Thacker said, adding she told her sister she would put her on three-way and let her call herself. She did, and an ambulance took Hess to an abuse shelter, Thacker said.

“She wanted to tell me where she was and I didn’t want to know,” said an emotional Thacker, claiming Hess’ mother-in-law found out through Hess’ daughter where she was and talked her into returning home.

“The family [her sisters, brother, mother and daughter} tried to get her not to go back,” Thacker said. “We feared something would happen to her. But she went back.”

The Daily News could not find a means of contacting George Hess before press time.

Anyone with any information regarding the whereabouts of Sandy Hess, who was born in 1962 with blue eyes, and had sandy hair dyed reddish blonde at the time of her disappearance, is urged to call Det. Newsome at (606) 433-7711 or (800) 222-5555 or e-mail Newsome at kevin.newsome@ky.gov.

At the time of her disappearance, Hess was 5-feet, 3-inches tall, weighed 110 pounds, and had identifying characteristics which included pierced ears, missing upper front two teeth, both feet turned inward and sores on her arms and legs.