Coroner identifies burned body found in July near Lancaster

LANCASTER – Authorities have identified the burned body found in a water cistern at an abandoned home in the Lancaster area in July.

He was 26-year-old Michael Duncan, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which listed the cause of death as undetermined but the manner as homicide.

The charred, decomposed and partially skeletonized remains were found July 1 in the area of 220th Street East and East Avenue F, officials said.

“The body was found … by location film scouts,” sheriff’s Homicide Bureau Detective Ray Lugo told a news photographer at the scene. He said the film scouts left the area about 10:30 p.m. on July 1, and then called authorities the following morning to report the find.

The coroner’s office later misidentified the remains as 26-year-old Adam Buckley, 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.

No further information on the case was immediately available Tuesday.

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