VICTORIA – Police investigators on Vancouver Island say they are treating the deaths of two sailors reported missing last month as homicides.

The Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit confirms that the human remains found near Ucluelet earlier this month were those of Ryan Daley and Daniel Archibald.

Archibald and Daley arrived by boat in Ucluelet on May 13 after an eight-week voyage from Panama and were last seen on the dock.

The major crime unit says their deaths were not random.

Insp. Dave Hall says positively identifying Daley, who was 43, and Archibald, who was 37, is a significant step and officers can now focus on finding who killed them.

Hall says there is no evidence at this time to suggest the case is connected to the disappearance of Ben Kilmer, who vanished from the Duncan, B.C., area at the same time.