A liquor-store receipt may help lead to the arrest of those responsible for the destruction of an "irreplaceable" dinosaur skeleton meant to be the centre piece of a new fossil museum in northern Alberta.

The receipt was found in a nearby camping site, along with some fossil fragments.

RCMP told CBC's Briar Stewart they now have suspects in the vandalism.

The duck-billed Hadrosaur fossil was discovered near Grande Prairie on June 15 by paleontologist Phil Bell and a team from the University of Alberta.

Last week it was found smashed to pieces, an act Bell called malicious and heartbreaking.