Burned 'Human Skull' Leads to California Man's Arrest A California man allegedly shot and killed a man living on his property and burned his body, a district attorney's office says. He is charged with murder Two men told authorities that they found burned human remains — including a skull — after another man had visited their home, “appearing agitated and talking about a cremation,” according to a district attorney’s office. The two men discovered the scorched remains on Joseph Dexter Taylor’s property in Northern California, on March 21, one day after Taylor went to their home, the Butte County District Attorney’s Office said in a Thursday, March 26, news release. The remains are believed to belong to 33-year-old Chris Kidwell, who had lived on Taylor’s property in Oroville since late 2025, according to prosecutors. Oroville is about a 70-mile drive north from Sacramento. Taylor, 52, is now charged with murder in connection with the grisly discovery, the district attorney’s office said.It was not immediately clear whether Taylor had an attorney who could comment on his behalf. An official identification of the remains, which authorities only believe belong to Kidwell, are pending, according to prosecutors. The discovery of the remains came after Kidwell’s family called the Butte County Sheriff’s Office on March 20 to report that they had not heard from him for roughly a week, the district attorney’s office said. That same day, Taylor visited the two men who reported him to law enforcement after he mentioned a “cremation,” according to prosecutors. When Taylor arrived at the men’s home the morning of March 20, they saw that Taylor had “burn marks on his legs,” the district attorney’s office said. Authorities suspect that at some point, Taylor fatally shot Kidwell before burning his body, according to the district attorney’s office. After securing a search warrant, detectives with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office found the remains and related evidence on “two parcels” of land on Ricky Road in Oroville, according to a March 23 news release issued by the agency. When deputies went to arrest Taylor for murder, he “was already in custody at the Butte County Jail on an unrelated felony arrest warrant,” the sheriff’s office said.If Taylor is convicted of murder, he would face life in prison, according to the district attorney’s office. He is being held at the Butte County Jail without bail, the district attorney’s office said. In his mugshot, he is seen wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word 'Freedom.' Taylor was denied bail “due to the severity of the crime and pending arson cases in Lake County,” according to prosecutors.