Bones found in San Francisco home believed to be animal remains, not missing boy Kevin Collins

Local and federal law enforcement officers found bones during a search of a Haight-Ashbury home Tuesday, but it’s believed that they belong to some kind of animal and not Kevin Collins, a 10-year-old boy who went missing nearly 29 years ago.

San Francisco police executed a search warrant at the home on Masonic Avenue near Page Street, with the FBI and cadaver dogs from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office assisting in the search.

Several bones were turned over to the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office. Police said preliminary assessment of the bones indicated that they are from an animal, but that further analysis is necessary.

The home is near the area of Masonic Avenue and Oak Street where Collins was last seen alive at a bus stop. He had left a gym on Page Street after basketball practice Feb. 10, 1984, but never arrived home at Sutter and Broderick streets.

Ann Collins, Kevin’s mother, told several news agencies that police had contacted her saying they were conducting the search of the home in connection with the case.

A law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the search warrant in the case is sealed said the home was once occupied by someone who was once a “person of interest” in the case.

Michael Sharff, who lives next door, said he knew the Collins family well and even attended church with them.

Sharff said the two men who lived in the house at the time of Kevin’s disappearance were questioned by police back in 1984.

Police said the home’s current residents are not suspects in the disappearance.