The remains were found on Wednesday by volunteers who had been combing woodland near the town of Caronia on Sicily’s northern coast in the desperate search for Gioele Mondello, after his mother was found dead in the same area.

 “[We’re] nearly sure it’s the body of Gioele,” unnamed police investigators told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera.

“The trunk and a part of femur” uncovered were compatible with a four-year-old boy, police sources told the paper.

A DNA test will be carried out to determine the identity of the remains.

Gioele’s mother, 43-year-old DJ Viviana Parisi, was last seen on the morning of August 3 climbing over a motorway barrier after a minor collision with a van carrying workers in a tunnel.

The Corsa reportedly had a punctured tyre, so Parisi stopped the car once they had left the tunnel.

Although cameras showed Gioele in the car earlier, witnesses gave diverging statements on whether Parisi was carrying her son with her when she climbed over the barrier or not.

Her body was found five days later in a nearby forest close to Caronia, lying at the foot of a high-voltage pylon.

Gioele’s father, Daniele Mondello, following the grim discovery. (Photo: ANSA)

The remains of the child were discovered around 200 metres from the motorway where Parisi was involved in the accident.

Prosecutor Angelo Cavallo – who has said his team was unable to rule out Parisi’s accidental death, suicide or murder – was on the scene of Wednesday’s discovery.

According to the pathologist, Parisi likely died where her body was found.

It bore no visible wounds – though one arm was broken in several places – and the state of decomposition made it impossible to determine whether she was strangled.

Parisi and Gioele disappeared after the DJ told her husband, fellow DJ Daniele Mondello, she was going to Messina to buy shoes.

She was not spotted shopping but her grey Opel Corsa was photographed on a slip road entering the motorway.

The DJ, originally from the northern city of Turin, had suffered a recent psychological breakdown, and her condition had been reportedly aggravated by the coronavirus lockdown in Italy.

However, her husband insisted she had been calm and well on the morning of her disappearance.

With ANSA