So where does this leave the owner of the property and future redevelopment plans?

I would have thought determining if there were human remains in a fire investigation was something that could be successfully resolved in a fairly routine manner. However, after spending a couple of minutes reading about this on the internet (or what Victoria Watcher considers as "becoming an expert"), I see that this is really not the case. It is apparently very difficult to do, and remains can often be overlooked, or even mishandled in a way to make them undetectable pretty easily.

I hope budding murderer/arsonists don't realize that this is the case.

/I suppose the existence of crematoriums should have been a clue that the body can be reduced to dust if the temperature is high enough.

The Victoria Police Department has named the Plaza Hotel’s live-in caretaker as a suspect in the arson investigation.

Police named Michael Draeger a suspect during a virtual press conference on Thursday.

https://www.vicnews.com/news/missing-plaza-hotel-caretaker-could-have-died-in-fire-says-vicpd/

the update is there is no update.

except that we may not have sifted the debris thoroughly enough to figure out if a dead guy was among the ashes.

That's what I was thinking. After 9/11 they put the entire Twin Towers on a conveyor belt. Experts were picking teeth out of there. I have a feeling our investigators weren't that thorough.

That's what I was thinking. After 9/11 they put the entire Twin Towers on a conveyor belt. Experts were picking teeth out of there. I have a feeling our investigators weren't that thorough.

And despite that remains of something like 40% of the victims have not been identified