NEW ORLEANS -- Police continue investigating the deaths of a pair who reported missing and found dead in a burned out rental vehicle.

Candace Gillard, 24, and Jarnell Sanders, 23, had been reported missing about a week before the SUV they were last seen in was found in April.

“No one here knows the agony of looking for a child and you can’t find a child,” family friend Desi Bradford said.

A 2008 Chevy Trailblazer was found burned and abandoned at the intersection of the I-10 Service Road and Michoud Boulevard. When it was returned to the Kenner Avis location from where it was rented, insurance adjusters made a gruesome discovery.

"It was human remains,” New Orleans police detective Anthony Pardo said. “There was various pieces of human remains. The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office sent the remains to the Faces Unit at LSU Baton Rouge and forensic anthropologist Mary Manhein made a positive identification of Candace Gillard and Jarnell Sanders.”

Pardo said the rental vehicle had been rented to Gillard. Forensic experts determined Gillard and Sanders had been killed. Detectives are re-tracing the couple's steps leading up to the crime.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crimestoppers at 502-822-1111.