University police have identified skeletal remains found on the Clark Kerr Campus as those of a Texas man last seen alive in 2009 and are asking anyone with information about his killing to contact them.
Steven Lawrence McCreary would have been approximately 37 at the time of his disappearance, according to a statement from the UC Berkeley Police Department.
“Based on the condition of the bones analyzed by the Alameda County Coroner’s Office, McCreary’s death is a homicide,” according to the statement. “Forensic and other evidence indicates the death occurred many years ago.”
McCreary “was known to travel around the country, sometimes on trains or by hitchhiking,” according to the statement. “He spent some time in the San Francisco Bay Area, but did not have a known residence here.” He was not affiliated with the university.
University police first announced the discovery of the remains in January in an unused building on UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus.
University police had withheld certain details until the remains were properly identified so authorities could notify McCreary’s next of kin, according to the statement. They asked anyone “who ever interacted with him for any reason” to contact university police Det. Sgt. Jon Caires at 510-642-0482 or jcaires@berkeley.edu or Detective Mitch Levi at 520-642-3658 or mlevi@berkeley.edu.
The brick building where McCreary’s remains were found, at one edge of the Clark Kerr Campus, was first built for the California School for the Blind in 1928 and had been “unoccupied due to poor seismic conditions since 1979,” about three years since the university obtained the Clark Kerr Campus, according to the statement. The university is currently using it for storage.
The Clark Kerr Campus, across the Southside neighborhood from the university’s main one, is home to a residential complex and event space.
The Berkeley Scanner first reported the announcement of McCreary’s identity.
