One of the Bay Area's best known child kidnapping cases burst back into the headlines Tuesday.
According to police sources, law enforcement officials moved in with a search warrant in hand to search a home in San Francisco in connection with the 1984 disappearance of then-10-year-old Kevin Collins. Police said the current person who lives in the home is not a suspect in the case.
San Francisco police were at the home near the corner of Masonic Avenue and Page Street from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday. It is a large three-story light green home.
Sources said police were searching for possible remains of the missing child.
San Francisco police said in a press release issued late Tuesday that the medical examiner responded to the scene and removed several bones that were located under concrete in the home's garage.
"A preliminary assessment of the bones indicates that they are from an animal and not human in origin," the release read. "However, further analysis of the bones is necessary," police said.
The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said that San Francisco police requested their search cadaver dogs to help them search the home. Spokesman J.D. Nelson did not know if the dogs found anything.
Collins disappeared the evening of Feb. 10, 1984. He was on his way home from a basketball practice at St. Agnes School in the Haight neighborhood and was last seen talking to a man with blonde hair waiting for a bus at the corner Oak Street and Masonic. Normally his older brother would have been with him, but that day his brother was home sick.
The location where Kevin was last seen and the location of the home that was searched Tuesday are within two blocks of each other.
He was one of the first missing children who received national attention. His image was on the cover of magazines and milk cartons.
Kevin Collins' birthday was last Thursday. He would have been 39 years old on Jan. 24.
Anyone with information on this matter is asked to contact the SFPD Major Crimes Unit at (415) 553-1145. Information can be given anonymously at (415) 575-4444, or via text message to Text a Tip at TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.
