One mystery has been solved; one remains.

Now family, friends and law enforcement officers know the answer to their 2-year-old question: Where is Beverley Callaway Watson?

The skeletal remains of the missing Fayette County mother of two were found scattered in a brushy rural area near Fairburn in south Fulton County March 20, law enforcement officials said Monday.

A surveyor notified Fulton County police of his discovery near the intersection of Red Mill Road with Ga. Highway 92. Forensics experts positively identified the dead woman, officers said.

Who or what killed her has yet to be answered, Fayette County Sheriff Randall Johnson said Monday, but he and other officers suspect the then-33-year-old wife was murdered.

Now attention shifts to the reinvigorated investigation and to the central figure in the case, Jim Watson, the husband who has steadfastly maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing in connection with the disappearance of his wife.

Watson, a locksmith and former part-time officer with the Riverdale Police Department, has had a stormy relationship with sheriff's investigators in the intervening two years, but has never been officially tagged as a suspect in his wife's disappearance.

Watson last year filed a federal lawsuit against chief investigator, Maj. Bruce Jordan, contending he was being harassed by deputies. Jordan responded that Watson had been "stalking" him and his family.

Watson told officers initially that his wife left their home in Fayetteville after an argument over a pending separation. He reported her missing Jan. 20, two days later. Watson said he delayed the call to authorities because, he said, his wife had left home before and stayed away for several days at a time.

Officers have been skeptical that she walked away from 295 Stoneridge Way in the early morning hours of Jan. 18, 1997, without even a coat, leaving behind family vehicles, purse and car keys.

"She was probably murdered," Johnson told reporters at a courthouse news conference Monday, but he declined to talk about how she might have died or even where.

The two children a 15-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son still live with Jim Watson at the Stoneridge address, but he is estranged from his wife's relatives, some of whom have openly accused him of harming his wife.

Johnson said he personally delivered the bad news to Watson Monday. "He invited us inside," the sheriff said. "We stood and talked about six minutes. He was upset."

District Attorney Bill McBroom said his staff is reviewing the case files and the law to determine whether a trial may be held in Fayette, even though the remains were found in neighboring Fulton County.

Asked whether Jim Watson now was a suspect in the case, Johnson replied, "We won't get into that at this time."

No arrests were imminent, said Maj. Terry Mulkey of the Fulton County P.D.

"I'm happy for the children to have closure, but I'm unhappy for what they have to go through," Jordan said Monday. He called the case "the toughest in my 20 years here." He estimated the department has expended "tens of thousands of man-hours" in following mostly fruitless leads, including some alleged sightings of the missing woman.

Jordan said Fayette officers were sharing their case files with Fulton police, with the aid of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Mulkey said his department continued to scour the area where the remains were found. So far, officers have recovered a skull, arm bones, partial hip bones, a pair of panties and other items he would not disclose.

The bones apparently had been on the site a long time, because they were entangled with undergrowth, Mulkey said. He wouldn't estimate how long or whether the victim had died at that site or somewhere else.