The Bay Area was captivated earlier this year with the story of a mysterious coffin containing the well preserved remains of what was believed to be a three-year-old girl underneath a home on Lone Mountain. Some dedicated researchers have continued their quest to figure out who this young girl was who passed away sometime between the 1870s and 1890s, and they now believe that she was in fact two years old, and pending the results of a DNA test, CBS 5 reports that they may be announcing her true identity within days.

The girl was given the name Miranda Eve and given a reburial in Colma in June, near what is thought to be the final resting place of her other family members who would have been buried near her in the former Odd Fellows' Cemetery on Lone Mountain. The cemetery, along with several others in the area, was emptied in the 1930's to make way for real estate development, and most of the coffins were put in mass graves in Colma. However workers doing all that digging clearly missed some graves, and researcher Alex Snyder tells CBS 5, "I think as times goes on a lot more bodies will turn up."

Snyder points to shoddy record keeping by the Odd Fellows organization which has hampered research efforts into the girl's identity — though previously it had also been discussed that some paper burial records could have been lost in the fire following the 1906 earthquake. As of September, DNA testing of the girl's hair had concluded that she had succumbed to a drawn out illness, and that her maternal DNA was of a fairly rare type, and traceable to the British Isles.

The coffin was found during excavation work beneath the garage of a home at the foot of Lone Mountain. The find set off a chain of events involving curious history buffs, child advocates, and investigators around the country, ultimately leading to the reburial, paid for by the Odd Fellows.

Snyder says, as of now, "we’ve got a strong candidate and I suspect we will know fairly soon whether or not the candidate we have identified is Miranda Eve."

Stay tuned.

Previously: Little Girl's Well Preserved Body Found 150 Years On, Buried Beneath Inner Richmond Home