Body found inside burning SUV near Altamont Pass

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Alameda County sheriff's investigators are trying to identify a dead person whose body was found in a burning sport utility vehicle in a sparsely populated area east of the Altamont Pass in California.

Sheriff's spokesman J.D. Nelson told The Oakland Tribune on Saturday that the badly burned body was discovered inside the GMC Suburban in between the communities of Altamont and Mountain House on Friday night after deputies, CHP officers and firefighters from the nearby town of Tracy responded to a report of a vehicle fire.

The SUV was engulfed in flames when they arrived.

Nelson said the department dispatched homicide detectives and crime lab technicians to the scene because the death is being treated as suspicious until foul play can be ruled out.