Authorities find skeletal remains at home of Georgia man who died in Hawaii
(NEXSTAR) – The family of a 74-year-old man who died during a trip to Hawaii say they found the skeletal remains of a human being on his Georgia property a few days after his death, police in Decatur have confirmed.
A representative for the Decatur Police Department said the 74-year-old's family had believed the remains belonged to his adult son, who had gone missing years ago. An investigator at the DeKalb County Medical Examiner's Office later confirmed to Nexstar that this is indeed the case, having positively identified the remains this week.
The medical examiner's office does not suspect any foul play, a representative told Nexstar.
Henry Frantz Jr. died on March 10 in Maui, according to an obituary posted online by a Decatur funeral home. A representative for the Maui Police Department was not immediately available to provide a preliminary cause of death, but local outlets including Atlanta’s WSB-TV and Decaturish.com reported that Frantz suffered a scuba-diving accident.
Six days later on March 16, police were called to Frantz’s residence in Decatur, Georgia, in reference to the discovery of “a deceased person,” police said.
“Family members of the previous homeowner of the residence located what they believed to be a human skeleton in the backyard of the home, inside a treehouse,” a representative for the Decatur Police Department wrote in a statement shared with Nexstar.
The director of operations at the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office told Nexstar that the remains showed no obvious signs of trauma, but that they had not yet determined a cause of death.
"No foul play is suspected," she said.
Speaking with local news outlets, Frantz’s daughter said that her missing brother, whose name was also Henry, had left home about four years ago. He was 28 at the time, she said.
According to his obituary, the elder Frantz was an avid lover of Scottish and Irish music and often played the bagpipes. In 2015, Decaturish did a profile on Frantz, calling him the area’s “unofficial bagpiper” due to his frequent performances around the Decatur and Atlanta area.
In addition to the bagpipes, Frantz was also fond of traveling and hunting for fossils, his obituary noted.
A memorial service has been scheduled for April, according to his obituary.