The coroner’s office has identified a homicide victim whose burned and decomposing remains were found in a water cistern at an abandoned home in the Lancaster area in July, but there was no determination at press time as to the 26-year-old man’s cause of death.
Michael Duncan’s “charred, decomposed and partially skeletonized remains’’ were found July 1 in the area of 220th Street East and East Avenue F, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which listed the cause of death as undetermined but the manner as homicide.
“The body was found … by location film scouts,’’ sheriff’s Homicide Bureau Detective Ray Lugo told a news photographer at the scene. He said they left the area about 10:30 that night, and called authorities the following morning to report the find.
The coroner’s office later misidentified the remains as those of another 26-year-old man, who turned out to be alive, and subsequently issued a statement explaining that staff had been unable to get fingerprints or bone DNA from the body because of extensive thermal damage.
