Police in Council Bluffs, Thursday, released a report identifying the remains of a person found following a house fire on Dec. 31st, 2013, in rural Mills County. Officials with the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Ankeny said based on circumstantial evidence in the case, bone fragments discovered in the home at 16683 Alcorn Avenue, are most likely those of Council Bluffs resident, 26-year old Travis Bach.

Several small, burned bone fragments were located during an excavation of the home on Jan. 15th and 16th, 2014. The fragments were sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for testing. A test of Mitochondrial DNA was conducted, but none was located.  The Medical Examiner has listed the cause of death as accidental, and probably related to smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.

The home where Bach’s remains were found belonged to 69-year old Gerald Nibbe, who’d been away the night of Dec. 31st, 2013, night visiting family in Omaha. The Mills County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa State Patrol had responded to a call from a security company around 9:30 p.m. saying the home’s motion-detecting security alarms were going off. When officers entered the home, they discovered multiple alarms going off and a fire.

Nibbe returned between 11 p.m. and midnight to find his home ablaze. Bach’s mother, Colleen, said her family believed Travis Bach was near the scene of the fire. Officials had investigated a suspicious vehicle parked on the property the night of the event. The vehicle’s owner, who lives in Council Bluffs, told sheriff’s deputies that he lent the vehicle to Travis Bach. Bach knew Nibbe and had done “odd jobs” for him in the past.

Council Bluffs police Sgt. Chad Meyers says authorities believed from the outset that remains found at the scene were Bach’s, but DNA tests were inconclusive. Meyers described the home as a “hoarder’s house,” full of items that made the fire burn hotter and longer than usual.

Investigators with the Iowa State Fire Marshal Division were not able to determine what caused the fire.