The bodies of at least 61 people, some of them believed to be children, were pulled from an abandoned crematorium in Western Mexico early Friday.

According to BBC, the bodies were discovered at a facility near the Mexican resort of Acapulco that has been closed for about a year. Authorities found the bodies stacked on top of one another and wrapped in dirty sheets. Many of the bodies had decomposed, and lime had been used in an effort to hold down the smell.

Authorities became suspicious of the scene after neighbors called to complain of a foul order emanating from the building. Police stress it's not yet known if any of the dead people were the victims of organized crime, but the facility is reportedly only about 100 miles from where 43 students went missing several months ago.

"We can't say for now that there is an indication that organized crime participated in this, but we can't rule that out," Miguel Angel Godinez, Guerrero chief prosecutor, said.

Fourty-three student teachers were abducted in late 2013, and authorities later deduced it appeared to be the work of corrupt local officers and crazed drug gang members.

Tomas Zeron de Lucio, the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigations Agency, later revealed the killing of the innocent students appeared to be a case of mistaken identity, with the victim's killers erroneously suspecting they belonged to a rival gang, CNN reports.

"We can conclude that the motivation was consistent (with the theory that) the students were identified by the criminals as members of an organized rival group that operated in the region. That was the reason why they deprived of their freedom, initially and then of their lives," Zeron de Lucio explained.

Police later arrested or detained as many as 99 people in connection with their missing student probe, including former Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, who was suspected of masterminding the entire scheme.

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