RENTON, Wash. — STORY PUBLISHED TUESDAY, NOV. 7: Fire investigators entered a home in Renton's Fairwood neighborhood today with a cadaver dog.
The one-story house in the 16500 block of SE 146th Ave SE. caught fire on Friday afternoon and the roof collapsed. It was too hot and unstable to enter the home on Friday.
Investigators returned to the house with a cadaver dog and found the body of a man in his bedroom.
The medical examiner removed the body and is still working to make an official identification.They believe it is the homeowner and at this point, detectives think the fire was accidental.
In a strange twist, the body they found behind the house on Friday is now believed to be the homeowner's brother, who moved in to help care for him after their father passed away in 2013.
The King County Sheriff's Office says it appears the body had been in a courtyard area behind the home for a few years. The man was never reported missing.
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Investigators believe that brother appears to have died from natural causes. Detectives are still investigating how he ended up outside.
Neighbors told KIRO-7 they looked up the home on the assessor's website and could see an outline of the body in the backyard in the aerial photograph taken in 2015. KIRO-7 also found the image with what appears to be the outline of the body in the backyard.