The remains were at least 10 years old and there was no sign of knife or gun shot trauma, News Limited reported yesterday.

Identifying the T-shirt and where it came from will be the focus of Strikeforce Hixson. Post-mortem results should be completed today or tomorrow, shedding more light on the woman and how she died.

It was reported the T-shirt was on the remains and the woman was aged somewhere between 20-30.

A group of trail-bike riders found the bones at Dalys Waterhole, just off the Red Arm Creek Fire Trail near a wombat hole, around 4km from where Ivan Milat buried his seven victims in the northern part of the forest.

Police last week wouldn’t comment on what links the evidence had to Milat or if someone else was using the forest’s infamy to put police off their scent.

Homicide Detective Inspector Mark Newham would only say no ballistics evidence was found at the scene, nor had the victim been shot.

Disturbingly, 200 metres away, off a smaller fire trail, are the remains of a camp littered with fireplaces, beer bottles and bourbon cans. A Woodstock Bourbon can with two bullet holes is tied to a tree – a shooting gallery that has not been examined by this new search team.

Backpacker victims Gabor Neugebauer, whose neck was broken and spine severed, and Anja Habschied, who was decapitated, were found under large logs 200 metres from a campsite littered with bottles and cans shot to pieces.

It was at that site that police recovered bullet cartridges and boxes matched to those found in Milat’s Eagle Vale home when he was arrested in 1994.

But Inspector Newham said pathologists believe this woman died after Milat’s arrest.

“There are many names that have been put forward,” he said.

“The difficulty with identification is that we have to take into consideration the fact that there are also a number of other people from overseas and interstate who are still missing.”

Many investigators from Task Force Air, the team that locked up Milat, believe he had a partner in crime at some of those scenes.