PAX, W.Va. — A man discovered dead in a home Wednesday may have been there for several days, according to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department.
“From what we’re seeing, probably a couple of days,” said Capt. Jim Sizemore. “That’s not anything that can be determined with any high degree of scientific certainty or reliability, but he’d been there for a little while anyway.”
The state Medical Examiner’s office was performing an autopsy, which was expected to confirm the man’s identity. He was tentatively identified by the sheriff’s department as Joshua Dillon, 32, of Pax.
Sizemore said Dillon was known to live at the home.
A discovery inside the home further complicated the investigation.
“When deputies arrived at the scene and we started our investigation we discovered a fresh, clandestine meth lab in the house,” Sizemore said. “At that point we had to pull all of our investigators out and call for the Central West Virginia Drug Task Force to come in and render that lab safe and make the scene safe.”
The drug task force determined meth had been produced in the home for a long time. Sizemore said it’s not known if meth lab was connected to the death, but it is a possibility.
Deputies think the man was killed by a single gunshot wound, but Sizemore said even that wasn’t obvious.
“It wasn’t due to the condition of the scene,” he said. “There again, we’re dependent on the autopsy to give us a manner and cause of death.”