A body that washed ashore in Edgartown harbor earlier this year is expected to be identified as a Brazilian carpenter who went missing over 18 months ago, state police said this week.

State police Sgt. Jeff Stone said investigators believe the body found on a small stretch of beach at the end of Morse street on April 16 was Renato Gomes Da Rocha, a 48-year-old Brazilian national who disappeared from the Island without trace in April of 2006.

Sergeant Stone said state police collected DNA evidence from Mr. Da Rocha’s family in Brazil and have sent it to the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) crime lab in Washington D.C. to be analyzed.

“We think the body is [Mr. Rocha]; right now we are just waiting on the results to confirm it,” he said.

Until now, police and prosecutors have released few details about the investigation.

Brian Glenny, first assistant district attorney for Cape and Islands district attorney Michael O’Keefe, said this week the investigation is ongoing.

Police believe a roommate of Mr. Da Rocha stole money from his bank account after he went missing and then fled to Brazil. Police have called the roommate, Daglio Alberto Pinto, a person of interest in their investigation.

Following a strong northeast storm in April that tore open the barrier beach at Norton Point in Katama, a partially decomposed body washed ashore in Edgartown harbor that matched a general description of Mr. Da Rocha. A month later, a spokesman for the state medical examiner’s office confirmed the body was the victim of homicide.