The man found dead Saturday inside a burning North Campus Way house has been identified as Evan Plaisted-Graman, a 37-year-old Davis resident, Yolo County coroner’s officials said.
His death has been ruled a suicide, caused by a shotgun wound to the head and not by the fire, according to Chief Deputy Coroner Gina Moya. The Davis police and fire departments are continuing to investigate the incident, including the cause of the fire.
George Graman, Plaisted-Graman’s father, confirmed to The Davis Enterprise on Monday that “my son took his own life, and fire was involved.”
“He was a fine man,” a tearful Graman said in an interview on the front porch of his home, which he shared with Plaisted-Graman for the past year-and-a-half. “I’m going to miss him.”
Graman said nothing appeared amiss with his son earlier Saturday morning or the night before, when the two shared a meal. But he heard popping sounds coming from Plaisted-Graman’s bedroom at about 9:30 a.m., prompting Graman to call 911.
“I went to his room and opened the door,” Graman recalled. “All these explosions were going off, and he was in there somewhere.”
Davis firefighters discovered Plaisted-Graman’s body as they extinguished the blaze, which Graman said was mostly contained to the bedroom but caused smoke and water damage elsewhere in the house.
Plaisted-Graman had moved back into his childhood home about a year and a half ago, after selling a home in Winters.
“He was in transition,” Graman said of his son, a former vocational trainer for the developmentally disabled. More recently, he had expressed an interest in food-related work, such as agriculture or a restaurant job.
Graman said Plaisted-Graman just purchased 20 acres of property in Calaveras County and made plans to move there to explore his employment options.
But Plaisted-Graman’s moods had shifted in recent weeks, when he’d “go back and forth, have different days,” Graman said. A beloved pet dog’s death around Christmastime was “the thing that broke the camel’s back.”
“He was just really close to his dogs,” particularly Scout, the mastiff mix that had died, Graman said. The dog “will be a human in the next life. He really made you feel like he knew what was going on.”
Graman described his son’s death as coming “out of the blue,” considering the two men had plans to travel up to Calaveras County early next week to check out the new property. Plaisted-Graman, an avid camper, intended to live in a recreational vehicle on the site.
“He was just going to do off-the-grid electricity, satellite internet, and grow his own food,” Graman said. “He was a great person.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene