The case of a Santa Fe boy missing for nearly eight years took a strange turn Thursday.

Police were called about 11:30 a.m. to the Bellamah Drive home from which 7-year-old Robbie Romero disappeared and were told that a garbage bag full of remains or bones had been unearthed from the home's backyard, said Capt. Gary Johnson. The garbage bag had been placed in a green trash container by the time officers and detectives arrived and strung yellow police tape in front of the home and across the street, he said.

An officer stood near the trash can until a detective arrived with a search warrant signed by a state District Court judge that allowed the garbage bag to be taken from the can and opened. Officers erected black screens around the trash can before extracting the bag in case they were human bones, Johnson said.

"We popped the bag open, and we found they were not human remains," he said. "They were the remains of what we believe to be a dog."

But that's not the strange part.

First, two Romero family members who live at the house could not remember burying a pet in the home's backyard recently, Johnson said. Second, the remains, which still contained hair and skin and did not appear to be very old, were not those of a whole dog carcass, he said.

"It was the head for sure, and not much more than that," Johnson said, adding the remains gave off a bad smell. "You could still make out (the dog's) features." He estimated the remains were about 6 months old.

The oddities prompted detectives to dig deeper in the hole where the remains were found, though they discovered nothing, Johnson said.

"This case is so out there," Johnson said. "We have to remember to keep the focus on Robbie Romero."

Robbie Romero vanished from the home the evening of June 7, 2000. Despite exhaustive searches, the boy has never been found.

Evelyn Romero, Robbie's mother, arrived home about 1 p.m. and fainted soon after police told her why they were there, Johnson said. Paramedics were dispatched to the home to treat her.

Evelyn Romero said she didn't know of any pets that have been buried in the backyard in recent years. "We haven't had any pets that have died," she said as she sat waiting in her car outside her home Thursday afternoon. In fact, she said the entire yard was excavated two or three years ago because dirt kept washing onto the back porch.

Rudy Romero, Robbie's oldest brother, said the dog remains were dug up in the same area of the yard the FBI had excavated about seven and a half years ago while searching for Robbie's body.

"I don't see how (the FBI) could have missed a black garbage bag," Rudy Romero said before police had checked the contents of the garbage bag. Still, if the bag had contained the remains of his brother, the sense of closure the discovery would have brought the Romero family "would be the best thing."

A Romero family member who requested anonymity said the garbage bag was unearthed while she was "just doing some gardening."

Johnson also cited the FBI search of the home and said when he heard the remains were found, he thought: "It didn't make sense."

"Those remains couldn't have been there when the FBI searched," he said.

The last time police actively searched for Robbie Romero was in January 2006, when they spent three days searching an area near the city's solid waste transfer station. Nothing was found during that search, Johnson said.

A grand jury heard testimony about the case later that month, but no indictments ever came out of it. Johnson said a detective is assigned to the case and quickly jumps on any lead that comes in about it, though he admitted not much has occurred with the case lately.

Police have long considered Robbie's older brother, Ronnie Romero, a "person of interest" in the boy's disappearance, but have never charged him in connection with the case or even called him a "suspect." A state District Court judge sentenced Ronnie Romero, 30, to a year in jail in March for violating his parole for the sixth time.

Police believe Robbie Romero is dead, though they have never found his body.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.