According to police, a South Carolina man killed his girlfriend while living in her home and then committed suicide after digging a grave in the backyard.
Joseph McKinnon, 60, strangled Patricia Dent, 65, inside their home and was shoveling dirt onto her corpse when he suffered a fatal heart attack, according to the Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office.
After receiving reports about a burglary, the deputies visited the house over the weekend. “an unresponsive male lying in his yard,”Sheriff Jody Rowland stated this in a news release.
Investigators initially found no suspicious evidence. They believed McKinnon died from natural causes in McKinnon’s yard. Then, they went into the pit.
The sheriff stated that Dent’s body was found wrapped in plastic bags by deputies. McKinnon died of natural causes, according to autopsies. “a cardiac event”Authorities said that Dent was strangled to death.
“Everybody who ever met her liked her. She was just full of energy. She was 65 and working,” Dent’s twin sister, Pamela Briggs, told WRDW-TV. “A big part of me is gone, and now I’m going to have to live with that,” she said
