A structure fire early Sunday morning on Dyers Creek Road in New Point left only a smoldering pile of rubble on the home’s foundation, and it claimed one life, apparently that of an 81-year-old resident who was in the home at the time.

The Mathews County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release on Wednesday morning that Virginia State Police investigators had conducted a search with cadaver dogs on Tuesday and had found remains believed to be those of the homeowner, Edmund B. “Buck” Webster Jr. of New Point and Richmond. It took sheriff’s deputies several hours to recover the remains, said the release, and those remains were sent to the state laboratory for an autopsy and positive identification.

Webster and his wife, Gay (who died last October), were the former owners of New Point Campground.

Ronald Coles Burroughs and his wife, Denise, were at home at the time of the fire, but they said they didn’t realize the house was in flames until the fire ...