NEW DETAILS: Demolition crews find body in basement of Dayton house razed after fire

“Once on scene crews were notified that there were crews excavating a torn down house that had been set on fire,” Dayton police Lt. Steven Bauer said. “During the excavation a body was found in the basement.”

The razed house by Seminary Avenue was the site of a Nov. 29, 2023, fire, said Dayton Fire Department Assistant Chief Brad French.

“Dayton Fire Department crews were unable to make entry into the structure to conduct search operations due to the intensity of the fire conditions and active structural collapse,” French said. “An emergency demolition was ordered for the building following fire extinguishment due to the extent of the damage and the danger of additional collapse.”

The house was vacant, boarded and had no electric or natural gas, District Chief David Grubb said following the fire deemed suspicious.

“They arrived and found a boarded-up house with heavy fire throughout,” he said. “As we arrived, the second floor inside collapsed.”

An adult body was removed from the site. The person has not been identified. The incident and the person’s cause of death are under investigation by the the Dayton Fire Department’s Fire Investigations Unit, Dayton Police Department’s Homicide Unit and the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office.

Five people were discovered deceased in a March 8, 2023, fire at another abandoned house, this one at 508 N. Broadway Street in the Old Dayton View neighborhood.

The house also had no utilities connected, and a Dayton fire investigator ruled the cause undetermined.

In 2019, human remains were discovered in a burnt detached garage off Fountain Avenue in Dayton.

A man who said he was hired to clear the garage on Sept. 26, 2019, called 911 to report finding a bone he said appeared human.

Dayton police responded and took the bone to the coroner’s office, which determined it was possibly human.

Dayton firefighters responded to fire at the garage several days earlier, on Sept. 17, 2019. When they arrived, it was engulfed, officials said at the time.

The remains later were identified as 40-year-old Kwasi Casey of Dayton. Five people were convicted in his July 2019 abduction and beating death. The defendants hid Casey’s body in the garage and set the fire to destroy evidence and the victim’s body, prosecutor’s said.