The mother of a nine-year-old boy has relayed the gruesome story of how her son discovered the human remains of a woman or girl near a school in Keswick the morning of May 11.

York Regional Police say the service was called at 11:30 a.m. about the discovery of human remains near Jersey Public School, on Glenwoods Avenue.

The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said her son was playing "cops and robbers" with friends in the area and he first noticed the body.

"She was found leaned against the fence with her legs crossed with her hands in her lap and wearing a white shirt, and had medium-length brown hair," the mother told yorkregion.com in an email.

According to the boy, the body appeared to be "a teenager or young adult and quite small in stature", the mother said in a followup phone call.

"My son said he had to rub his eyes as he couldn't believe what he was seeing, and then he went to alert the office," she wrote in the email. "I was floored and I went to pick up my son, who was very shaken up by what happened."

About 30 minutes after police were notified, the school contacted the woman to divulge what had just happened to her son.

"Right now, I’m doing my best to comfort my little guy and trying to answer questions that I don’t have the answers to," she wrote. "He wants to know (as do I) what happened to this poor girl."

The woman said others who witnessed the horrible scene claimed to have noticed a belt around the body's neck, but her son did not.

"He’s scared, sad and shocked," she said. "I commended him, that, despite being so young and finding something so awful, he acted right away and alerted the staff."