Family members of a missing Georgia man discovered his skeletal remains inside a treehouse in his father’s backyard as they were settling affairs of his estate following his death.
Henry Frantz Jr., 74, who was known for playing his bagpipes in the Atlanta area, died in a scuba diving accident in Hawaii on March 10, WANF reported.
On March 16, Frantz Jr’s family went to his Decatur home — located about 15 miles outside of Atlanta — to finalize his affairs when they made the disturbing discovery of a human skeleton inside a treehouse built in his backyard.
The remains belonged to her missing brother, Henry Doyle Colon Frantz, who went missing over four years ago when he was 28 years old, one of Frantz’s daughters confirmed.
“He left home one day, and he apparently came back,” Rebecca Frantz Culpepper told the outlet.
The DeKalb Medical Examiner is now investigating what caused Henry’s death but told Culpepper that they do not suspect foul play was involved, the outlet added.
Frantz, a father of four, has lived alone since 2018 after the death of his second wife but was known to live a “very active lifestyle,” his daughter told the Daily Mail.
In the years since her death, Culpepper said family members rarely visited her father since most lived out of state.
Frantz’s death is also being investigated at this time by the Maui police.
The Post has reached out to the Maui Police Department for comment.
The 74-year-old bagpiper was a founding member of the Atlanta Pipe Band for 55 years, according to a post by the group on Instagram.
“Henry’s impact on our band and the piping community was immeasurable,” the group wrote. “Beyond music, Henry’s curiosity led him to travel the world, explore fossils, and pursue scuba diving.”
The band has played for some of the most influential figures in recent history, including President Carter and Bush, Prince Charles, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Dalai Lama, according to WANF.
Frantz was known for playing his woodwind instrument at weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, and other public events around the metro Atlanta area.
He was an attorney who picked up bagpiping as a teenager and was unofficially known as the “bagpiper of Decatur,” he told the Decaturish in 2015.
A friend of Frantz’s, Leonard E. Wood, told WSB-TV that he will be “missed by the piping community, and in Atalanta and other places.”
“Sometimes you can just meet someone and you just know you’re going to like that person. And I think that’s the way it was for Henry,” Wood said.
Wood also said the finding of his son’s skeletal remains “was an awful shock.”
“All I know is he was a good kid,” he said. “Terrible tragedy. I can’t imagine. Hank was a young man.”
