Man Who Hated Fire Is Found Burned and Hanging From Underpass: Why Family Thinks It's a Homicide By Samira Asma-Sadeque

A Texas man who was reportedly traumatized as a child because he was burned in a fire was found hanging from an underpass with burns to his body last month.

Officials from the Houston Police Department responded to the North Interstate Highway 610 on Oct. 24, where Houston Fire Department personnel briefed them about the body of Jeremy Carnes, which had been found there, the HPD said in a statement at the time.

Carnes was not named in the statement, but has since been identified by family in several local news outlets and in a GoFundMe.

Carnes, 46, was found hanging beneath an overpass with burns to his body, according to the HPD’s statement.

Homicide detectives are investigating the case. The medical examiner’s office said Carnes’s cause and manner of death are still being investigated.

Carnes’s family says there is no chance that his death could be suicide because he had a lifelong fear of fire, local outlet Click2Houston reported.

Carnes’s sister, Commilla Kidd, told Click2Houston, “When he was 3 years old, he was burned badly. He’s got face scars, the whole deal.”

“My brother hated fire. Like it was a fear after that,” Kidd added. “For anybody to say that he did this to himself, our family’s going, you don’t know him.”

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Carnes is being remembered for his kindness and ability to connect with children.

“He could make friends with anybody. He just was kind,” Kidd told Click2Houston of her “baby brother” whom she helped raise.

“When he was home, he was present and loving and the kids’ best friend,” Kidd said. “He was just amazing with the kids.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to assist with Carnes’s funeral costs and for his family to take care of his dog, who the family believes is pregnant.