It will be a week before the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary say they'll be able to resume digging in a remote wooded area in St. John's where human remains were found Sunday.

Police said they stopped all excavating once the human bones were turned up and experts from outside the department were called in to help complete the dig and analyze what had been found.

Acting Insp. June Layden said police do not want to continue investigating the site until access to the area off Thorburn Road is improved.

"The road is in very rough shape," said Layden.

"We have been able to access it using all terrain vehicles and four-by-fours, and, unfortunately, it caused some damage even to the four-by-fours that we have been using."

The Works, Services and Transportation Department is looking into what can be done to improve the road, she said.

A lot of work also has to be done to secure the site before digging can resume, "to ensure that no unauthorized persons go in anywhere near the area," Layden said. 

"As well, we have to protect the site from the elements so that when we bring the experts in that we need — to initiate the recovery — that any work that they do won't be disturbed by any adverse weather conditions or anything of that nature."

Police will not say if the remains may be those of a St. Philip's couple who disappeared 13 years ago — Dale Worthman and Kimberly Lockyear — but they do say the investigation into that disappearance led them to the discovery.

Worthman and Lockyear vanished from their home in St. Philip's in August 1993 and police believe foul play was involved.