FITCHBURG, Wis. – Authorities searching for a missing college student found a body Monday in a field about 10 miles south of Madison, where 22-year-old Kelly Nolan vanished last month after a night out at the bars.

Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said detectives were investigating the death as a homicide, but that the body had not been positively identified.

“We can’t take a leap at this point and say that this is Kelly Nolan. We do not know that yet,” DeSpain said at an afternoon news conference.

DeSpain said the body was found in a wooded area on private property in Fitchburg, but he gave few details.

Monday morning, police had focused their search for Nolan on a 3-square-mile area that included part of the neighboring village of Oregon, just off U.S. Highway 14. DeSpain said that he was not aware of any specific suspects in Nolan’s disappearance and that the area was one of several areas identified during the investigation as worth searching.

“We believed there might be items connected to Kelly Nolan’s disappearance that could be found in this area,” DeSpain said.

Nolan, a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student from the Madison area, had been living in a Madison apartment for the summer. She was last seen early on the morning of June 23 after a night out with friends at bars in the city.

She left a group of friends that included her sister before midnight, but police have interviewed people who saw and spoke with Nolan at several downtown bars after that. She also spoke to her sister by phone after midnight.

A cafe employee on Saturday reported seeing Nolan early on June 23 and walking her toward her home until they ran into another man who said he knew Nolan, according to Tom Paras, the owner of Amy’s Cafe. Two days later, when the employee learned of Nolan’s disappearance, he called police with the information, Paras said.

Police have released few details, saying they didn’t want to jeopardize the investigation, and family members have said they were told not to discuss details of the case.

DeSpain declined Monday afternoon to describe the condition of the body, but said it was obvious to detectives that the person had been slain.

The body was found off a wooded road dotted with homes. Police closed off the area Monday afternoon, and DeSpain said it would remain closed for several days as investigators searched for evidence and interviewed residents.

The area is well-known to people who ride horses in the area, DeSpain said.

Police said the area where the body was found had been searched before, but not to the extent it was on Monday morning. Dogs trained to recognize Kelly Nolan’s scent were involved in the latest search, authorities said.

Madison police were assisted in Monday’s search by agents from the FBI, Dane County Sheriff’s Department, K-9 units and horse search teams, as well as police agencies from Wisconsin and Illinois.

Nolan’s sister April, 20, described her as fun-loving and creative, but said she had been going through a tough time since the deaths of their father in 2006 and their stepmother in May.

Nolan’s family offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to her return.

Nolan’s disappearance evoked memories of another woman, Angela Drake, who disappeared after going home with a man she met in a Fitchburg bar in 2005. Her body was found frozen in a culvert.