Hikers on Saturday found human remains in a mountainous area in Southern California where British actor Julian Sands disappeared five months ago, authorities said.
The body was discovered around 10 a.m. in the wilderness near Mount Baldy.
It was taken to the coroner’s office for identification next week, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Sands, an avid hiker and climber, was reported missing Jan. 13 after making his way to the more than 10,000-foot peak east of Los Angeles. In winter, the region was hit by violent storms.
On Friday, his family released their first statement since Sands’ disappearance.
“We continue to carry Julian in our hearts and fondly remember him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of nature and the arts, and an original and collaborative artist,” the statement said.
Sands, known for his roles in Oscar-nominated films including 1985’s ‘A Room With a View,’ was reported missing by his family on January 13 after he was lost while hiking in the Mount Baldy area of California San Gabriel Mountains was gone.
Julian Sands sits on a peak of the Weisshorn in the Swiss Alps in September 2022
Search parties have worked tirelessly to locate the famous actor. Their most recent search mission included over 80 search and rescue officers, deputies and staff. During the mission, two helicopters, teams of drones and aerial search equipment were deployed to search some of the more remote areas around Mount Baldy, but the missing actor could not be found
Sands, a 65-year-old British-born actor best known for his role in the 1985 film A Room With a View, is married to journalist Evgenia Citkowitz and has three adult children.
Sands, 65, was reported missing by his family after disappearing into the dangerous mountain range
Since Sands’ disappearance on January 13, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has conducted eight searches.
Her latest search mission on June 17 involved more than 80 volunteers, staff and deputies, but found no trace.
Towering over Los Angeles, Mount Baldy is approximately 10,064 feet tall.
The mountain has been described by seasoned hikers as one of the deadliest mountains in the United States and holds one of the worst records for deaths and injuries in the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, there have been more than 100 searches for missing hikers on Mount Baldy since 2020, with six deaths confirmed.
A map of the area where Julian Sands, 65, was reported missing
The region is home to some of the most popular hiking trails in Los Angeles, California
His family reported him missing at 7:30 p.m. on January 13 and rescuers recovered a snow-covered car, which was towed away
Sands’ first major production was 1984’s The Killing Fields, the acclaimed historical drama about Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge (pictured alongside John Malkovich).
Pictured: Sands and Helena Bonham Carter on the set of the award-winning 1985 film A Room With A View
Sands and his wife, US journalist Evgenia Citkowitz, married in 1990 and have two children together
Sands was born in Yorkshire, northern England, in 1958 to mother Brenda, who raised him and his four brothers alone after their divorce.
He received a private education at Lord Wandsworth College, a boarding school in the Hampshire countryside, before taking the plunge into acting.
Sands landed small roles first, starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 1983 TV movie A Married Man and appearing in Privates on Parade, which was about a military entertainment group in Malaysia in the late 1940s.
His first major production was 1984’s The Killing Fields, the acclaimed historical drama about Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
Sands played journalist Jon Swain in the triple Oscar-winning film.
But the following year it was his turn with the adaptation of the classic EM Forster novel, A Room With a View, which made Sands a star.
He portrays the philosophical and freethinking George Emerson and falls in love with a Florentine pensioner in the historical drama starring Helena Bonham Carter’s character Lucy Honeychurch.
The couple’s lips locked in a field of poppies in what is considered one of the most romantic on-screen kisses of all time.