Human remains found in missing family’s cabin

Officials are treating Northern California wildfire as homicide.

Investigators have found the remains of at least two people inside a burned cabin belonging to a Northern California family that was reported missing. The blaze is being treated as a homicide and arson, officials have announced.

The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office recovered the charred remains inside the cabin along Highway 193 in Garden Valley, where a wildfire broke out Sept. 13, according to a statement from the agency.

Other remains, possibly belonging to a human, also were found but investigators are still examining them, sheriff ’s officials said. Samples of all three sets of remains have been submitted for DNA tests.

The remains were found inside a cabin owned by Adam Buchanan, who operates a construction business in the Bay Area city of Benicia. Buchanan, 37; Molly McAfee, 36; and their son, Gavin Buchanan, have been missing since the fire erupted, the Vallejo Times-Herald reported.

Attorney Stephen Gizzi told the newspaper that the family frequently visited the vacation home and had arrived there Sept. 11.

Gizzi said Buchanan’s 16-year-old son remained home in Benicia.

As the homicide investigation progressed, sheriff’s deputies searched Buchanan’s home and construction office in Benicia, hauling away computers, records and a pickup truck, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Gizzi has said detectives have not revealed why the case is being treated as a homicide.

“They did not have any outstanding, out-of-the-norm business or family problems,” Gizzi said of the family.