Sheriff says remains identified as those of missing Florida grandmother

Remains found last week in the backyard of a Florida home have been identified as those of missing grandmother Kristina French, the Jacksonville Sheriff\'s Office announced Monday, November 27, 2017. The woman\'s 15-year-old grandson was detained Friday by US agents near the border with Canada, officials said. Photo courtesy Google Earth

By Tina Burnside and Steve Almasy, CNN

(CNN) -- Remains found last week in the backyard of a Florida home have been identified as those of missing grandmother Kristina French, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office announced Monday.

The woman's 15-year-old grandson was detained Friday by US agents near the border with Canada, officials said.

The sheriff's office said in a tweet that the medical examiner positively identified the remains.

"The investigation is active and ongoing. No further details are releasable," the tweet said.

Authorities took the boy into custody in Buffalo, New York, on suspicion of grand theft auto.

"We need to interview him to discuss what happened at the home," Ron Lendvay, director of the department of investigations at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, said Friday, hours before the 15-year-old was caught more than 1,000 miles from his home in Neptune Beach.

The boy was detained Friday night after he made a U-turn in a 2015 Dodge Dart on Peace Bridge in Buffalo, said Aaron Bowker, a spokesman for the Buffalo field office of US Customs and Border Protection.

He never made it to the Canadian side, Bowker said.

Police had been looking for the boy, his grandmother and her Dodge since Wednesday, when the teen's father returned from a trip and said he found guns missing from a safe that had been broken into.

His son and mother, who were supposed to pick him up at an airport, were missing.

The-CNN-Wire

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