Escondido police announced Sunday the discovery of the remains of Amber Dubois in Pala.

The Escondido teen went missing on Feb. 13, 2009, and has been missing since. She was 14 years old at the time.

“The discovery was made in the early morning hours of Saturday in a very rugged and remote section of Pala,” Escondido police Chief Jim Maher said at a news conference.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the body using dental records and Dubois’ parents were notified.

Officials did not give details on the investigation or whether it’s related to the arrest of John Albert Gardner III, who was charged in the death of 17-year-old Chelsea King last week.

“We’d like to thank everyone involved in the search for Amber the entire community — everyone that helped search in the effort — and most of all our huge volunteer corps,” said father Maurice Dubois, who spoke briefly at the Sunday announcement.

The murder case is still under investigation.

The announcement came a day after investigators searched for evidence in Amber’s disappearance in a pond at Kit Carson Park in Escondido.

Police were tipped Thursday that last May, three girls found a black plastic bag and human hair at the edge of a pond, said Escondido police Lt. Craig Carter.

Detectives found a bag Thursday night, but it contained only mud and debris, Carter said. It was given to the FBI to analyze.

John Albert Gardner III, 30, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murdering Chelsea and raping or attempting to rape her and attempting to rape another woman in December, a potential death penalty case.

A spokesman for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, Paul Levikow, declined to comment Sunday on the investigation into Amber’s death.

Gardner was registered as a sex offender in Escondido, a north San Diego suburb, from January 2008 to January 2010, with some gaps, police say.

He served five years of a six-year prison term for molesting a 13-year-old neighbor in San Diego in 2000; he saw her at a bus stop and lured her to his home to watch movies. He completed parole in September 2008.

Amber was last seen walking with a man about 200 yards from Escondido High School by a woman who used to drive her to middle school, her father said. Another neighbor reported seeing her about 300 yards from school. She never appeared on school surveillance cameras.

Amber, a Future Farmers of America member, left home with a $200 check to buy a lamb. It was never cashed, fueling suspicion of foul play.

There was no physical evidence recovered, hindering early search efforts, her father said. Calls reporting sightings of the girl poured in, but none panned out.

After Gardner was arrested Feb. 28 outside a Mexican restaurant in Escondido in connection with Chelsea’s disappearance, Amber’s father said he strongly suspected the same man was behind his daughter’s abduction. He noted that the girls had some identical features — 5-foot-5, thin, blue-eyed — and that Gardner was living nearby at the time.

“They’re both beautiful girls. There are so many similarities it’s scary,” he said Thursday.

Gardner is being represented by Michael Popkins, a public defender who declined to speak with reporters after Wednesday’s arraignment. No one answered the phone at the public defender’s office Sunday night.

Physical evidence was quickly recovered when Chelsea went missing, sparking a massive, round-the-clock search that involved 1,500 law enforcement officials and thousands of volunteers.

Chelsea’s death sparked outrage in her hometown of Poway, a wealthy suburb that borders Escondido.

A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Matthew Carroll, recommended the maximum sentence allowed under law for Gardner in 2000, calling him an “extremely poor candidate” for treatment and a “continued danger to underage girls in the community.”

He faced a maximum sentence of nearly 11 years in prison under a plea agreement, but prosecutors urged six years.

The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.