Police doctors have yet to identify the body of the man washed up on Devonshire Bay on Tuesday morning as hopes dwindle for finding missing man Raymond Howes alive.

Mr. Howes, a 49-year-old tiler from Mary Victoria Road, Prospect, was last seen at the MarketPlace store on Church Street in Hamilton at 3 p.m. on Friday. His bike was found abandoned at Spittal Pond two days later.

It is not the first tragedy to affect the Howes family.

Mr. Howes? twin brother Royston jumped three storeys to his death while living in the US as a 24-year-old student in 1981.

He had been studying at the Boston School of Art when he went to visit a Bermudian friend in Brooklyn, New York.

During that fateful stay a roommate heard someone trying to break down the door and went to warn Mr. Howes and the woman.

New York Police said Mr. Howes had jumped out of the window and was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The burglar ran away.

Bermuda Police are still working on the latest mystery.

Friends and neighbours have described Raymond Howes as a cheerful, hard-working man unlikely to commit suicide.

Asked about the Devonshire Bay body, Police spokesman Dwayne Caines said: ?We are still having identification issues. There is no more than I can say.?

He would not comment on reports that medics were having problems identifying the body due to its advanced state of decomposition.

The body was discovered by a beachcomber face up, naked and wearing just one shoe half a mile away from Spittal Pond.

Anyone with any information on Mr. Howes, pictured, or his whereabouts is asked to contact the Juvenile and Domestic Crime Unit on 295-0011. The missing man is described as dark-brown skinned, slim, 5ft 5in and with short hair. Mr. Howes was wearing a plaid shirt and dark blue trousers when he was last seen.