Pilot Who Stockpiled Remains Found Dead

Ending a three-week manhunt, investigators announced Wednesday that they have found the body of a fugitive pilot who had stockpiled thousands of boxes of cremated human remains he had been hired to scatter from his plane. He is believed to have committed suicide, the police said.

The body of 52-year-old Allan Vieira was found on Tuesday afternoon in a patch of brush just off a rural highway in Calaveras County about 120 miles east of San Francisco. The county coroner, Terry Parker, said it appeared that Vieira had been dead more than two weeks.

Debbie Parsons, a spokeswoman for the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Department, said the police had found a handgun next to the body and, in an abandoned station wagon parked nearby, a note signed by Vieira saying, “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused.”