A South Carolina man is said to have died of a heart attack while trying to bury his girlfriend’s body after murdering her. Investigators in the state discovered the horrific truth accidentally, and once the real story came out, it shocked everyone.
- Local sheriff’s deputies and paramedics were called to a home in Trenton. After receiving reports of an unresponsive man lying in his yard, they arrived to find 60-year-old Joseph McKinnon collapsed. However, they didn’t have to look too far to also see the body of 65-year-old Patricia Ruth Dent wrapped in trash bags and thrown inside a recently dug hole, NPR reports.
- McKinnon was believed to have died of natural causes. However, they couldn’t say the same for Dent. After a coroner’s examination, an autopsy report that Dent had been strangled to death. The investigator’s hunch about McKinnon was right too – he died of a heart attack.
- Slowly, authorities began piecing together the evidence. As Sheriff Jody Rowland and Coroner David Burnett of Edgefield County said in a joint statement: “Evidence gathered at the scene, along with statements from witnesses aided investigators to build a timeline, leading us to believe that Mr. McKinnon attacked Ms. Dent while inside their home. Mr. McKinnon then bound her and wrapped her in trash bags before putting her in the previously dug pit. The pit was then partially filled in by Mr. McKinnon. While covering the pit, Mr. McKinnon had the cardiac event, causing his death.”
- Dent’s twin sister was shocked and horrified by her sibling’s murder. She told WRDW: “Everybody who ever met her liked her. She was just full of energy. She was 65 and working.” Dent worked at Mount Vintage Golf Club but had not turned up to work that day, which is what led authorities to have a look at the hole dug in the garden.
