Skeletal remains of missing son found in backyard tree house days after father dies in scuba accident

NBC News

27-03-2025

Days after an Atlanta man died in a scuba diving accident in Hawaii, authorities said they found the skeletal remains of his of his son who had gone missing four years prior in a tree house in his backyard.
Henry Frantz, 74, died while scuba diving off the coast of Maui on March 10, the Atlanta Pipe Band said in an Instagram post on March 14.
'A founding member of APB in 1970, past Pipe Major, and dedicated member for 55 years, Henry's impact on our band and the piping community was immeasurable,' the group wrote.
It is unclear what caused the accident. The Maui Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment to confirm Frantz's death.
Frantz's family could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Decatur Police Department said in a statement that on March 16, six days after Frantz died, his family found human remains in a backyard tree house at Frantz's home in Decatur, Georgia, about six miles northeast of Atlanta.
Beoncia M. Loveless, the director of operations for the Dekalb County Medical Examiner's Office, told NBC News in a phone call on Thursday that the remains belonged to Frantz' son, 32-year-old Henry Hank Frantz. Loveless said that her office has not yet determined a cause of death.
Local reports said that son went missing four years prior.
A Decatur police spokesperson told NBC News in a phone call that the son was never reported missing to the department. A case for Frantz's son was not in the Department of Justice's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System as of Thursday.
Loveless said her office has not yet determined when the 32-year-old died. Although the remains were mostly skeletal, she said that some tissue was still present on the body.