COLCORD — Delaware County authorities think possible bone fragments found under a house could belong to a man missing since 1988.

Sheriff's Department Capt. Robert Rowley says the fragments will be sent to the state Medical Examiner's office to be analyzed.

Rowley says an anonymous tip last week led authorities to the fragments and that the tip indicated the bones could be those of 60-year-old Johnnie Ball, who was reported missing from his Kansas, Okla., home on Sept. 28, 1988.

Ball was last seen a day earlier in the area of Twin Oaks, Okla., and Siloam Springs, Ark. His wife, Betty Ball, has said that the day before her husband disappeared, he told a relative he would soon be coming into a sizable amount of money.

In 1996, Ball was declared to be legally dead.