Investigators are working to determine how barrels containing human remains ended up in a South Carolina lake. WYFF's Parul Joshi reports.

The bodies of a man and a woman have been found in two barrels in a South Carolina lake, Anderson County investigators said.

The first barrel was discovered late Wednesday afternoon floating in the water near Asbury Park, the Anderson Independent Mail reported.

Investigators opened the barrel Thursday morning and determined it contained human female remains, sheriff’s spokesman Chad McBride said.

The woman has been identified through fingerprints, but her identity was not immediately released.

The second barrel was found Thursday afternoon, near a bridge about a half mile away. Greg Shore, Anderson County coroner, said the remains were of a man, the Independent Mail reported. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

The deaths are being investigated as homicides.

It's estimated that both bodies had been in the barrels for around 30 days, McBride told NBC News. Investigators believe that the deaths are related.

"From what we know it sounds like they were probably dead before they were placed in the barrels," McBride said.

It's not yet known how the victims were killed.

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McBride said the remains were "in pretty bad shape" and described "a very gory scenario."

"We've had some pretty grisly murders and odd cases in our county but this is definitely another one of those that’s quite unusual," he told NBC News.

Charleston County Sheriff's Department Maj. Jim Brady said the woman’s body was not that of Gayle McCaffrey, a Charleston, S.C., woman who has been missing since March 17.

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